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J.  H8I 


DANIEL 

DARIUS    THE    MEDIAN 

CYRUS  THE   GREAT 

A   Chronologico- Historical    Study 


Based  on  Results  of  Recent  Researches,  and  from 
Sources  Hebrew,  Greek,  Cuneiform,  etc. 


/       BY 

Rev.  Joseph  Horner,  D.D.,  LL.D, 

Member  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology 
London,  England 


Pittsburgh,  Pa. 
JOSEPH    HORNER 

EATON  &  mains:        -        -        NEW  YORK 
JENNINGS  &  PYE :      -       -     CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  Joseph  Horner 
1901 


CONTENTS 


PAGS 

Preface 5 

Preliminary 7 

I.  The  Story  of  Daniel 9 

II.  War  of  Cyrus  with  Astyages,  and  Date  of  His  Over- 
throw   42 

III.  The  Persons  and  Other  Matters   Pertaining  to  the 

Taking  of  Babylon  and  the  Extinction  of  the 

Babylono-Chaldean  Empire 61 

IV.  Identification  of  Darius  the  Median 74 

V.  Matters  Subsidiary , 114 


PREFACE 


It  was  at  first  proposed  to  give  a  title-page  to  this 
work  which  would  present  a  general  view  of  its  con- 
tents. That  could  be  done,  it  was  thought,  somewhat 
after  this  manner:  "Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and 
Cyrus  the  Great;  an  authentication  of  Daniel's  book,- 
an  identification  of  the  Median,  an  elucidation,  in  part, 
of  the  story  of  the  Great  King,  and  parts  of  the  books 
of  Jeremiah  and  Ezra ;  aiming,  by  information  derived 
from  recent  researches,  and  from  sources  Hebrew, 
Greek,  Cuneiform,  etc.,  to  bring  more  clearly  into 
view  the  general  and  singular  accuracy  of  the  Biblical 
historical  notes,  for  the  period  from  the  fall  of  Nineveh, 
B.  C.  607,  to  the  reign  of  Darius  the  Persian,  son  of 
Hystaspes,  B.  C.  521 ;  with  tabulated  chronology  and 
related  suggestions,  geographical,  exegetical,  etc. ;  the 
whole  intended  as  an  effort,  in  its  sphere,  corrective  of 
some  of  the  errors,  oversights,  misinterpretations,  etc., 
of  former  writers,  and  of  the  later  destructive  criti- 
cism." The  references  to  authorities  need  only  the 
statement  that  R.  P.  refers  to  the  first  series  of  Records 
of  the  Past,  and  R.  P.  N.  S.  to  the  new  or  second  series, 
both  edited  by  Professor  Sayce. 

What  was  begun  simply  as  a  magazine  or  review 
article  largely  outgrew  the  space  usually  allotted  in 
such  publications.    Therefore,  being  submitted  to  cer- 


6  Preface 

tain  persons  who  seemed  to  be  competent  to  judge  of 
its  merits,  and  their  verdict  indicating  that  it  is,  for  the 
most  part,  a  new,  original  setting  of  its  subject,  an  in- 
teresting and  vakiable  contribution  to  its  Hterature,  the 
author  felt  it  to  be  a  duty  to  make  this  his  first  venture 
in  book  form,  and  thus  issue  some  part  of  the  results  of 
study  and  investigations  which  have  been  his  luxury 
through  many  otherwise  very  busy  and  laborious 
years.  It  will  opportunely  follow  the  sumptuous  vol- 
umes of  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  history  by  Dr. 
Rogers. 

He  ventures,  also,  to  dedicate  this  book  to  the  min- 
isters and  people  of  the  territory  covered  by  the  Pitts- 
burgh, Erie,  West  Virginia  and  East  Ohio  Confer- 
ences, as  a  respectful  indication  of  his  appreciation  of 
favors  received  during  the  long  period  of  his  associa- 
tion with  them. 

Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  January  i,  1901. 


DANIEL,  DARIUS   THE   MEDIAN 
AND    CYRUS   THE    GREAT    .-.    .-. 

A  Chronologico-Historical  Study 


Preliminary 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  paper,  in  the  light  afforded 
by  such  sources  of  information  as  may  be  indicated, 
to  propose,  tentatively,  a  solution,  or  solutions,  within 
the  range  of  certainty  or  probability,  of  apparent  his- 
torical difficulties.  These  arise,  it  is  thought,  in  whole 
or  in  part,  from  methods  heretofore  pursued  in  the 
treatment  of  the  history  as  read  in,  or  into,  the  Biblical, 
the  secular,  and  the  cuneiform  accounts  brought  to 
light  by  the  recent  researches  and  exhumations  in 
western  Asia. 

The  substantial  accuracy  of  the  several  sources  of 
information  thus  described,  and  to  which  reference  is 
made,  will  be  assumed  without  much  questioning,  other 
than  that  which  may  arise  in  the  process  of  endeavor- 
ing to  secure  a  satisfactory  interpretation.  In  cases  of 
positive  or  inexplicable  disagreement  or  demonstrable 
error  in  secular  writers,  whether  classical  or  monu- 
mental, the  inscriptions  on  the  latter  will  be  esteemed 
as  of  superior  authority,  when  their  several  narratives 
are  not  incompatible  one  with  another. 


8  Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  C)rrus 

It  may  be  here  frankly  confessed  that  it  is  thought 
that  the  statements  of  the  Biblical  writers,  including 
Daniel,  to  whom  special  attention  and  regard  will  be 
given,  when  properly  interpreted  and  understood,  will 
be  found  to  be  remarkably  free  from  inaccuracy  when 
brought  to  the  test  of  other  reliable  sources  of  infor- 
mation; and  that  they  are  rather  supplementary  than 
either  in  disagreement  or  contradiction.  When  these 
two  sources  agree  in  matters  actually  stated  or  set 
forth,  to  neither  can  an  omission  or  omissions  of  other 
matters  or  of  more  extensive  detail  be  charged  as  con- 
tradictory, nor  be  justly  used  to  discredit  what  is  writ- 
ten. The  period  covered  will  embrace  substantially  the 
times  of  Daniel,  the  reign  of  the  "Great  King,"  Cyrus 
the  Second,  and  will  be  extended  to  the  usurpation  of 
the  Persian  throne  by  Darius,  the  son  of  Hystaspes, 
a  period  of  somewhat  less  than  a  century  and  ending 
B.  C  521. 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 


L  The  Story  of  Daniel 

The  story  of  Daniel  begins  with  the  twentieth  year 

of  Nabopolassar,  for  a  time  viceroy  or  governor  of 

Babylon  under  the  suzerainty  of  Assyria, 

,    ,  .  ,.     ,       ,  1  •        1  Nineveh 

and  afterward  kine:  of  the  later  kingdom   fallen,  em- 

pire    passed 

of  the  Chaldeans.    This  was  the  year  B.  C.   to    Babylon 

-^  and  Media. 

606,  the  third  of  Jehoiakim's  reign,  when 

Nebuchadnezzar,  conjointly  with  his  father,  king  of 
the  Chaldeans,  laid  siege  to  Jerusalem,  which  in  fourth 
Jehoiakim  (605)  was  surrendered.  At  the  suggestion 
of  the  conqueror  a  selection  of  youths  of  noble  lineage 
was  made,  and  Daniel,  among  others,  was  selected 
and  taken  to  Babylon  by  the  "Great  King's"  son  and 
copartner  in  the  kingdom,  who  in  B.  C.  604,  by  the 
death  of  his  aged  father,  became  sole  king  of  the 
Babylonian  and  Chaldean  kingdom.  Three  years 
previously  Nineveh  had  fallen  a  prey  to  the  combined 
forces:  the  Babylonians,  under  the  joint  command  of 
Nabopolassar  and  his  son  as  co-rex,  and  the  Medes, 
with  their  more  or  less  fierce  allies,  under  Cyaxeres  I 
(Ahasuerus  I,  Tobit  xiv,  15),  who  dominated  and 
was  strengthened  by  the  tributary  "Manda,"  or  bar- 
barous or  nomad  tribes  from  the  north-northwest  to- 
ward the  river  Halys,  and  northeast  of  Assyria,  to- 
ward the  Caspian  Sea ;  he  being  at  that  time  in  about 
the  thirtieth  year  of  an  eventful  reign.  During  these 
three  years  the  indications  are  that  the  "Great  King" 


10         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Nabopolassar,  being  much  in  war,  had  followed  the 
example  of  Esar-haddon,  and  what  seemed  to  be  the 
Oriental  custom,  when  the  father  was  absent  or  infirm 
or  busily  engaged  with  other  affairs,  as  building  and 
improving  his  cities  or  temples  or  palaces,  that  his  son 
should  be  declared  co-rex,  and  thus  were  delegated 
to  him  the  kingly  title  and  functions.  It  is  thus  that 
he  is  proleptically  called  (Dan.  i,  i)  "Nebuchadnez- 
zar,-'' king  of  Babylon." 

Eastward,  and  probably  in  the  time  of  Gudea  north- 
ward, of  Nineveh,  and  southward  toward  the  Persian 
Gulf,  including  the  kingdom  of  Susa,  or  Shushan, 
stretched  the  mountainous  kingdom  of  Elam,  when, 
at  its  greatest  expansion,  dominating  Parsuas,  the 
ancient  Persia,  which,  when  it  first  appears  in  the  in- 
scriptions,! seems  to  have  lain  to  the  north  and  east  of 
Elam  between  the  Caspian  and  Lake  Urmiah,  and  north- 

*  Otherwise,  and  perhaps  more  correctly,  written  "Nebuchadrezzar."  the 
change  being  in  all  likelihood  owing  to  a  simple  and  more  or  less  common  dialectic 
interchange  of  the  liquids  'n  "  and  "  r,''  both  forms  being  used  in  Holy  Writ.  So 
likewise  were  the  liquids  "  1 "  and  "  r  "  in  "  Pul  "  and  "  Poros,"  interchanged,  and 
now  claimed  to  be  one  and  the  same  person.  The  name  does  not  seem  to  have 
absolute  uniformity  in  the  inscriptions,  and  in  the  Greek  forms  we  have  for  the 
"r,"  in  some  cases  "l"and  in  others  '' n.*'  This,  therefore,  militates  nothing 
against  Daniel,  not  more  at  most  than  it  does  against  Jeremiah,  who  uses  both 
forms. 

+  So  Schrader's  map  (with  Keilenschri/ten  und  GescAi'cts/crschun^)  places 
"  Barsuas,"  which  according  to  Professor  Sayce  is  the  Vannic  form  of  Parsuas,  or 
the  ''Classic  Persia,"  our  Persia  (/?.  P.  N.  .S".,vol.  iv,  p.  46,  note;  vol.  v,  p.  149). 
As  to  Media,  Professor  Sayce's  note  is  :  "  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  Medes, 
spoken  of  by  Sennacherib  did  not  as  yet  inhabit  the  district  of  which  Ekbatana 
subsequently  became  the  capital.  Hence  the  title  of  'far  off'  applies  to  them 
here'''  (R.  P.  N.  S.,  vol.  vi,p.  87).  Schrader,  however,  thinks  ft  "  unlikely  "  that 
"  Barsuas  "  is  to  be  identified  with  Parsuas,  or  Persia.  But  the  finding  of  the  Per- 
sians in  this  locality  at  their  first  appearance  in  history  makes  St  much  less 
difficult  to  understand  how  they  first  appear  as  subordinates,  and  so  soon  afterward 
as  conquerors  of  the  Mcdcs;  results  in  both  cases  much  more  easily  and  likely  to 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus         11 

west  of  ancient  Media  and  its  ancient  capital,  Ekbatana 
(now  Takht-i-Sulayman). 

Over  both  Elam  and  Persia  the  Medes  seem  to 
have  gained  such  an  ascendency  as  to  have  made 
them  feudatories,  or  established  over  them      Eiam  and 

Parsuas  sub- 

a  suzerainty.  How  and  when  this  suze-  jectto  Media, 
rainty  had  been  secured  are  not  certainly  known, 
but  whenever  it  occurred  Elam  seems  to  have  been  so 
absorbed  by  its  conquerors  as  to  have  almost  ceased 
to  have  a  separate  national  identity,  and  so  merged  in 
the  empire  of  the  Medes  that,  when  somewhat  suddenly 
their  power  was  wrested  from  the  Medes  by  the 
Persians,  Elam,  as  a  part  of  the  possessions  of  the 
king  of  Media,  passed  into  the  hands  of  Cyrus  the 
Second,  without  any  special  mention  of  its  having 
come  under  his  power,  or  of  its  having  been  conquered 


be  attained  as  friendly  states  and  neighbors,  with  no  intervening  nationality  to  be 
passed  over  or  through,  and  which  are  nowhere  claimed  as  having  been  first  con- 
quered, or  indeed,  as  having  in  any  way  been  concerned  in  these  operations.  In  the 
southern  location,  Elam,  Susa  and  Karmanias  in  part  would  seem  to  have  occu- 
pied the  position  of  "buffer  states,"  whose  consent  must  in  some  way  have  been 
gained  either  for  active  co-operation,  or  passively  to  have  suffered  the  invading 
hosts  to  pass  through  their  dominions.  It  is  further  possible,  as  suggested  above, 
that  the  Elam  of  Gudea's  time  may  have  covered  a  territory  much  more  extensive, 
stretching  out  farther  north  than  that  to  which  it  was  later  confined,  so  that  the 
Anzan  of  the  Cyrus  branch  of  the  Achaemenians  may  have  been  farther  north  than 
the  later  Elam,  and  contiguous  to  both  Media  and  Persia.  That  in  later  years  the 
names  Parsua,  or  Persia,  and  of  the  Median  capital  Ekbatana  should  be  found 
farther  south,  may  be  easily  and  satisfactorily  .accounted  for  on  the  theory  that  as 
the  Aryan  tribes  or  clans,  both  Median  and  Persian,  migrated  southward,  they 
carried  with  them  their  own  distinctive  names,  just  as  colonists  from  Europe  have 
done  in  this  western  hemisphere,  in  some  cases  prefixing  a  distinctive  term,  as. 
New  England,  Ne'w  York,  Neiv  Orleans ;  but  far  more  frequently  using  the  old 
names  pure  and  simple,  as  London,  Paris,  Edinburgh,  etc.  Indeed,  at  this  very 
time  in  their  migrations  from  the  older  to  the  newer  settlements  the  same  process 
is  going  on,  and  names  are  carried  with  them  by  the  emigrants  and  given  to  their 
new  settlements  to  be  perpetual  memorials  of  their  former  places  of  abode. 


12        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

by  this  descendant  of  that  Achaemenes  who  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  of  his  race  to  have  attained  to  the 
regal  title  or  authority.  In  the  inscriptions  Cyrus  first 
Ori  •  and  ^PP^^^^  as  "king  of  Anzan,"  a  place  or  do- 
Cy"rus^the  ^lain  whose  exact  locality  has  not,  as  yet, 
Great.  hetn  certainly  determined.     It  is  supposed 

by  some  that  a  city  of  this  name  may  have  existed  in 
Persia;  by  others,  that  it  was  somewhere  in  Elam,  or 
that  this  was  another  name  for  Elam,  or  that  it  was  a 
province  of  Elam.  It  is  also  suggested  that  Persia  may 
have  had  two  places  occupied  as  seats  of  government, 
each  of  them  having  rulers,  who,  as  in  the  scheme 
which  follows,  claimed  the  title  of  king,  on  the  one 
hand,  of  Persia,  and,  on  the  other,  of  Anzan. 

His  own  account  of  himself  and  his  genealogy  is 
thus  given :  '*I  am  Cyrus,  the  King  of  Multitudes,  the 
Great  King,  the  powerful  King,  the  King  of  Babylon, 
the  King  of  Sumer  and  Accad,  the  King  of  the  four 
zones,  the  son  of  Cambyses,  the  Great  King,  the  King 
of  the  City  of  Anzan,  the  great  grandson  of  Teispes, 
the  Great  King,  the  King  of  the  City  of  Anzan,  of  the 
ancient  seed  royal  whose  rule  Bel  and  Nebo  love" 
(R.  P.  N.  S.,  vol.  V,  p.  i66,  lines  20-22;  H.  C.  and  M., 
p.  505).  In  lines  preceding  he  speaks  of  himself  as 
**king  of  Anzan,"  and  as  such  is  first  introduced  by 
Nabonidos.  The  "seed  royal"  can  be  none  other  than 
that  of  the  Persian  family  of  the  Achaemenians,  whose 
original  seat  was  Persia.  The  Behistun  inscription  of 
Darius,  son  of  Hystaspes,  supplements  that  of  Cyrus, 
and  completes  the  genealogy  as  follows; 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        13 

"I  am  Darius,  the  Great  King,  the  King  of  Kings, 
the  King  of  Persia,  the  King  of  the  Provinces,  the  son 
of  Hystaspes,  the  grandson  of  Arsames,  the  Achae- 
menian;  of  Arsames  the  father  was  Ariamnes;  of 
Ariamnes  the  father  was  Teispes ;  of  Teispes  the  father 
was  Achaemenes.  Says  Darius  the  King,  on  that  ac- 
count we  are  called  Achaemenians ;  from  antiquity 
those  of  our  race  have  been  Kings.  Says  Darius  the 
King,  there  are  eight  of  my  race  who  have  been  Kings 
before  me.  I  am  the  ninth ;  for  a  very  long  time  [or, 
better,  'in  a  double  line']  we  have  been  Kings"  (R. 
P.,  vol.  i,  p.  113,  etc. ;  R.  P.  N.  S.,  vol.  iii,  p.  150). 

The  family  line,  or  "tree,"  may  therefore  be  thus 
constructed : 

Kings. 

1.  Achaemenes,  King  of  Persia. 

2.  Teispes,  King  of  Anzan, 

3.  Cyrus  I,  King  of  Anzan.  4.  Ariamnes,  King  of  Persia. 

5.  Cambyses  I,  King  of  Anzan.  6.  Arsames,  King  of  Persia. 

Hystaspes  superseded  by 

7.  Cyrus  II,  King  of  Anzan,  of  Persia,  of  Babylon,  of  the  Medo-Persian  empire. 

8.  Cambyses  II,  King  of  the  Medo-Persian  empire. 

9.  Darius,  son  of  Hystaspes,  King  of  Persia,  and  its  provinces  or  satrapies. 

Hystaspes,  the  father  of  Darius,  may,  possibly,  at 
the  death  of  his  father  have  been  very  young,  or  in- 
capable of  resisting  the  rising  power  and  vaulting 
ambition  of  Cyrus  II,  who  was,  failing  the  posterity 
of  Arsames,  the  next  heir,  or  next  of  kin  of  the 
collateral  branch,  and  may  have  asserted  his  claim 
with  such  force  that  resistance  would  be  worse  than 
useless,  and  thus  the  throne  passed  from  that  branch, 
to  be  reclaimed,  on  the  failure  of  the  house  of  Cyrus, 
by  the  son  of  Hystaspes. 


14        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

As  no  mention  of  Persia  is  made  in  connection  with 
Teispes,  and  yet  both  Cyrus  and  Darius  seem  to  go 
back  to  him  to  legitimate  their  claim  and  action,  the 
query  properly  arises  as  to  whether  Teispes  had  not 
made  a  conquest  of  the  adjoining  Elamite  province  of 
Anzan,  and,  consolidating  it  with  his  patrimonial  king- 
dom of  Persia,  had  during  his  own  lifetime  compre- 
hended both  under  the  one  name  and  assumed  the 
title  of  king  of  Anzan,  dividing  it  afterward  so  that 
each  of  his  two  sons  might  have,  by  his  gift  or  their 
inheritance,  a  throne. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Cyrus  traces  his  ancestry  no 
further  than  to  Teispes,  king  of  Anzan,  and  then 
claims  in  general  terms  to  be  of  the  "seed  royal ;"  this 
being,  indeed,  sufficient  and  yet  necessary  to  establish 
a  show  of  legitimacy  in  his  claim  to  succeed,  or  of 
his  actual  succession  to  the  Persian  throne  after  the 
death  of  Arsames  of  the  other  line ;  since  it  goes  back 
to  the  ruler  whose  reign  began  before  the  division 
was  made  in  the  persons  of  his  two  sons,  and  thus 
completes  the  chain  of  title.  No  inscription  is  quoted 
in  which  Cyrus  is  styled  king  of  Persia  until  the  ninth 
year  of  the  reign  of  Nabonidos  (cir.  B.  C.  547)  ;  but 
the  death  of  Arsames  may  have  occurred  some  two  or 
three  years  previously.  Thus  also  is  established  the 
legitimacy  of  the  seizure  of  the  throne  by  Darius,  the 
son  of  Hystaspes,  after  the  line  of  Cyrus  had  become 
extinct  by  the  death  of  Cambyses  II  and  his  brother 
Smerdes. 

This  entry  upon  the  "monuments"  in  the  ninth  year 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus         15 

of   Nabonidos,   the   last    Chaldean    king,   abundantly 
justifies  and  avouches  the  accuracy  of  the      BibUcai  ti- 

Ue  "Cyrus, 

Biblical  writers  in  erivuie:  to  Cyrus  the  title  king  of  Per- 

*^         *^  -^  SI  a,"   vindi- 

of  "king  of  Persia;"  and  "the  Persian"  cated. 
nationality  is  proved  by  the  twice-told  genealogy. 
They  are  thus  protected  from  the  charge  of  being 
simply  "reflectors"  from  the  times  of  Darius  Hystaspes. 
The  date  of  every  Biblical  writer  who  entitles  him 
"king  of  Persia"  is  later  than  this  ninth  year  of  Na- 
bonidos; later,  indeed,  than  the  taking  of  Babylon, 
which  occurred  in  the  seventeenth  year  of  this  Chaldean 
king.  Nor  is  this  statement  contravened  by  the  oc- 
currence of  this  name  in  the  book  of  Isaiah,  whatever 
may  be  the  date  of  the  writer.  For  when  the  name 
Cyrus  occurs  in  Isaiah  it  is  without  territorial  or 
national  designation,  he  probably  being  known  only  to 
Isaiah  and  to  his  time  simply  by  revelation,  or  to 
prophetic  foresight,  as  a  coming  ruler.  That  is  cer- 
tainly the  interpretation  which  would  most  naturally 
present  itself  to  a  believer  in  the  prophetic  endowment, 
in  connection  with  the  emphatic  conspicuousness  of  the 
expressions,  "I  have  called  thee  by  thy  name ;"  "I  have 
surnamed  thee,  though  thou  hast  not  known  me"  (Isa. 
xliii,  i;  xlv,  4).  But  for  our  purpose  it  matters  not 
whether  it  is  prophecy  or  history,  before  or  after  his 
coming.  The  pregnant  fact  to  be  emphasized  is  that 
there  is  no  contradiction  or  disagreement  in  the  state- 
ments of  the  Biblical  writers  and  the  inscriptions  in  the 
matter  of  his  kingship  of  Persia ;  for  both  agree  that 
at  the  time  of  which  the  writing  gives  its  account 


16        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Cyrus  was  king  of  Persia,  the  inscriptions  giving  him 
this  title  at  a  date  earlier  than  when  it  was  given  him 
in  the  Bible.  That,  therefore,  must  be  placed  to  the 
credit  of  the  Biblical  writers,  as  in  so  far  sustaining 
and  confirming  their  accuracy  and  "unforgetfulness," 
against  the  statement  of  Professor  Sayce  that  the 
writers  of  Greece  and  Rome,  like  those  of  the  later 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  (?)  itself,  have  agreed 
with  Darius  in  forgetting  who  Cyrus  really  was.  'The 
sole  record  of  the  fact  which  remained  before  the 
discovery  of  the  cuneiform  texts  was  a  single  passage 
in  the  book  of  Isaiah.  The  conqueror  of  Babylon  was 
an  Elamite  prince"  (//.  C.  and  M.,  p.  518). 

It  is  not,  however,  by  any  means  certain  that  Isa. 
xxi,  i-io,  refers  to  Cyrus  and  the  Persian  invasion. 
It  is  against  this  view  that  Elam  is  first  named.  For 
if  that  is  for  Persia  the  order  is  different  from  the 
usage  of  both  Biblical  and  secular  histories,  which  at 
the  rise  of  the  empire  of  Cyrus  put  the  Medes  first, 
"Medes  and  Persians,"  not  ''Persians  and  Medes." 
Again,  the  expression,  "Besiege,  O  Media,"  does  not, 
at  all  events,  accord  with  Professor  Sayce's  declara- 
tion that  "we  now  know  that  the  siege  never  took 
place"  (p.  523).  Then,  too,  the  description  of  the 
result  of  the  "going  up"  and  the  "besieging,"  the  taking 
of  Babylon,  does  not  at  all  correspond  with  the  course 
which  the  monuments  ascribe  to  Cyrus  after  the  cap- 
ture of  the  city.  The  result  is  given  by  Isaiah  thus: 
"Babylon  is  fallen,  is  fallen ;  and  all  the  graven  images 
of  her  gods  he  hath  broken  unto  the  ground"  (verse 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        17 

9).  Surely  this  hardly  would  be  expected  of  a  dynasty 
"whose  rule  Bel  and  Nebo  love."  This  same  Cyrus 
makes  it  his  boast  that  **all  the  gods  of  Sumer  and 
Accad,  whom  Nabonidos,  to  the  anger  of  (Merodach) 
the  lord  of  the  gods,  had  brought  into  Babylon,  by 
the  command  of  Merodach  the  great  lord  I  settled 
peacefully  in  their  sanctuaries  in  seats  which  their 
hearts  desired.  May  all  the  gods  whom  I  have  brought 
into  their  own  cities  intercede  daily  before  Bel  and 
Nebo  that  my  days  be  long,  may  they  pronounce  bless- 
ings upon  me,  and  may  they  say  to  Merodach  my  lord : 
'Let  Cyrus  the  king,  thy  worshiper,  and  Cambyses  his 
son  [accomplish  the  desire]  of  their  hearts ;  [let  them 
enjoy  length]  of  days'  "  (//.  C.  and  M.,  pp.  506,  507). 
These  can  scarcely  be  the  words  of  an  iconoclast  such 
as  the  result  in  Isaiah  seems  to  demand. 

In  truth,  this  "burden  of  the  desert  [or  wilderness] 
of  the  sea"  reads  much  more  like  a  description  or 
anticipation  of  a  sudden  raid  or  irruption,  such  as  was 
characteristic  of  the  age  of  Isaiah  and  Sennacherib, 
wherein  Elam  and  its  more  than  a  score  of  confederates 
or  allies,  among  whom  the  Medes,  as  probably  at  that 
time  the  most  numerous  and  powerful,  are  named  by 
the  prophet  as  representative  of  the  allies,  many  of 
them  perhaps  already  Median  feudaries.  We  now  know 
from  the  inscriptions  that  for  several  campaigns  there 
was  almost  constant  warfare  between  Sennacherib,  on 
the  one  part,  and  Elam  and  its  allies,  on  the  other 
part,  largely  on  both  sides  in  contention  for  the  posses- 
sion of  Babylon,  and  that  Elam  and  its  allies  conjointly 


18        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

with  the  Chaldeans  had  possession  of  Babylon  more 
than  once  (R.  P.,  vol.  i,  p.  48,  etc.).  The  incident  of 
the  destruction  of  the  "graven  images,"  peculiar  in  the 
Babylonish  idolatry,  is  not  at  all  incredible,  as  it  was 
doubtless  intended  to  install  in  their  places  the  gods 
of  their  own  country,  and  thus  to  escape  or  counter- 
balance the  malign  influence  of  a  hostile  worship.  And 
there  are  not  wanting  indications  in  the  recorded  dis- 
affection of  the  hierarchy  that  something  had  occurred 
offensive  to  the  gods  of  Babylon  and  their  worshipers 
prior  to  the  coming  of  Cyrus,  as  may  be  detected  in  the 
account  just  quoted  as  to  the  redistribution  of  the 
gods  of  the  cities  and  provinces,  evidently  their  images 
having  been  brought  in  by  the  Elamites  and  others  to 
take  the  places  vacated  by  the  destruction  of  the  local 
images.  It  is  not  known  what,  if  any,  connection  this 
"burden"  may  have  had  with  or  to  the  expedition  made 
by  Sennacherib,  to  the  sea  at  the  mouth  of  the  river 
Ulai,  during  which  Suzub  the  Chaldean  "raised  a  force 
in  the  rear  of  Sennacherib,  and  the  king  of  Elam, 
who  had  hitherto  only  given  secret  help  to  the  Baby- 
lonians, now  marched  his  army  into  Babylon.  The 
Elamite  and  Chaldean  forces  captured  Babylon" 
(Smith,  Bab.,  p.  131;  Assyr.,  p.  125;  cf.  R.  P.  as 
above). 

As  to  the  "forgetfulness"  of  the  Biblical  and  classical 

writers,  both  records  show  that  his  being  also  "king 

Forgetful-  ^^  Persia"  was  well  remembered  by  both 

cafwrPters   Hebrews    and    Babylonians,    and    also    by 

disclaimed,     ^^^^.j^^  Hystaspes,  who  says:  "Thus  I  re- 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        19 

covered  the  empire  which  had  been  taken  away  from 
my  family  [i.  e.,  his  Hne  or  branch  by  the  Cyrus 
branch,  especially  by  the  usurper  pseudo-Smerdes]  ; 
I  established  it  in  its  place  as  it  had  been  before" 
(Behistun  Inscription,  Col.  I,  lines  10-14;  Bible  Edu- 
cator, vol,  ii,  p.  135).  So,  too,  the  Biblical  accounts 
connect  Elam  with  the  Medes,  and  if  it  is  true  that  he 
was  also  king  of  Elam,  there  is  still  further  agreement 
between  the  Biblical  and  cuneiform  authority.  The 
omission  of  the  king's  name  by  the  former  constitutes 
no  necessary  contradiction  of  the  latter,  nor  gives  any 
room  for  the  charge  of  unreliability.  In  what  is  actu- 
ally written  and  so  far  as  it  goes,  if  Professor  Sayce 
is  right,  their  agreement  and  accuracy  are  maintained. 
Elam  was  one  of  the  parties  which  participated  in  the 
conquest  of  Babylon,  at  whatever  time  the  conquest  al- 
luded to  in  Isa.  xxi,  8,  was  made,  or  whether  it  was  in 
possession  for  a  long  or  a  short  time,  so  says  the  Bible, 
and  so  say  the  inscriptions,  if  rightly  read  and  under- 
stood. For  the  Medes  were  doubtless  feudatories  or 
allies,  probably  the  most  numerous  and  reliable  of 
these,  in  the  day  of  Elam's  supremacy,  when  it  so  often 
raided  Babylonia  and  more  than  once  seized  the  capital ; 
and  in  this  Professor  Sayce  is  understood  substantially 
to  concur. 

Thankful  to  this  learned  and  unwearied  Oriental 
and  Biblical  scholar,  that  largely  through  his  labors 
so  much  has  been  discovered  and  estab-      ,,  ,    „ 

Medo-Per- 
lished,  the  hope  is  encouraged  that  in  some  fts"  in'SIJi'on 
way  the  statement  of  all  history  that  the   o^^abyionia. 


20        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Medes  were  the  other  conspicuous  sharers  in  the  honor 
of  the  particular  conquest  of  Babylon,  when  it  passed 
into  the  hands  of  Cyrus,  will  be  either  vindicated  or  its 
origin  satisfactorily  explained.  That  they  were  seems 
never  before  to  have  been  doubted.  But,  according  to 
Professor  Sayce,  by  the  monumental  inscriptions  the 
honor  belongs  to  the  "people  of  the  Manda,"  a  people 
whose  very  existence  under  that  name  as  a  national 
title  seems  to  have  been  utterly  unknown  to  the  his- 
torical literature  of  the  world  until  their  existence  and 
stupendous  doings  were  brought  out  "of  the  dust  of 
the  ages."  That  concealment  of  their  glory  is,  how- 
ever, no  valid  argument  against  their  claim,  if  other- 
wise substantiated. 

That  we  may  fairly  consider  this  claim,  and  be  in  a 
position  to  correct  or  vindicate  the  scriptural  account, 

Claim  of  the  ^hich  names  the   Medes,  but  never   "the 
against  ^the   Manda,"  we  may  collect  the  several  occur- 

^^^'  rences  of  the  name  in  the  inscriptions  as 

found  in  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  by  Pro- 
fessor Sayce,  and  the  interpretations  found  in  the  books 
which  treat  of  such  matters.  I  quote  p.  528:  "It  was 
the  conquest  of  the  Manda,  and  not  of  the  Medes, 
which  changed  Cyrus  from  the  tributary  king  of 
Anzan  into  an  independent  and  powerful  monarch." 
"If,  therefore,  his  troops  consisted  of  others  besides 
Elamites  and  Persians,  they  would  have  been  the 
Manda  of  Ekbatana."  [But  not  necessarily,  since  they 
might  have  come  from  the  tribes  farther  north.]    Page 

126:  "It  was  a  combination  of  the  Median  tribes  with 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        21 

the  king  of  the  Manda,  or  'nomads,'  which  brought 
about  the  rise  of  the  Median  empire,  and  paved  the 
way  for  the  empire  of  Cyrus."  [There  was,  there- 
fore, a  "Median  empire."  It  was,  however,  above 
quoted  as  being  "the  conquest  of  the  Manda,  and  not 
of  the  Medes,  that  made  him  a  powerful  monarch." 
But  if  the  Medes  and  the  Manda  combined  and  formed 
the  Median  empire,  how  could  Cyrus  conquer  the 
Manda  without  conquering  the  Medes?  And  if  the 
Manda  were  conquered  before  they  combined  with  the 
Medes,  how  could  these  two  combine  to  form  the 
Median  empire?  And  if  the  Manda  were  the  stronger 
and  more  numerous  body,  why  was  it  not  the  Mandean 
empire?  There  is  surely  confusion,  if  not  contradic- 
tion, here.  It  is  pertinent  to  remind  the  reader  that  in 
the  Biblical  account  Cyrus  is  not  represented  to  be  king 
of  any  country  other  than  Persia  and  Babylon,  by 
special  or  distinctive  title.]  "To  the  east  of  it  [Eden] 
lay  the  land  of  the  'nomads/  termed  'Nod'  in  Genesis, 
and  Manda  in  the  inscriptions"  (p.  95).  "The  land  of 
Nod,  or  the  nomads,  eastward  of  the  ed'm  of  Baby- 
lonia, is  the  Manda  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions" 
(p.  105).  "Lud,  I  have  elsewhere  suggested  that  it 
was  originally  'Nod/  that  land  of  the  'nomads' 
[Manda],  on  the  east  of  Babylonia  where  the  Manda 
of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  had  their  home"  (p. 
146).  As  to  the  temple  at  Haran,  "Nabonidos  tells  us 
that  it  had  been  destroyed  by  the  'Manda,'  or  'nomads,' 
whose  capital  was  at  Ekbatana."  [Evidently  the  north- 
ernmost city  of  that  name.]     "But  the  Manda  had  been 


22        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

overthrown  by  Cyrus,  and  Nabonidos  was  accordingly 
summoned  in  a  dream  by  Merodach  to  restore  the 
shrine"  (p.  197).  "The  nomad  Skyths,  or  Manda,  as 
the  Babylonians  call  them"  (p.  451).  "In  the  judg- 
ment of  Babylon,  pronounced  by  Jeremiah,  the  nations 
who  are  called  upon  to  overthrow  the  city  of  the  op- 
pressor are  neither  Elam  nor  Persia,  but  the  IMedes, 
and  the  kingdoms  of  Ararat,  Minni,  and  Ashkenaz" 
(Jer.  li,  2y,  28).  "The  Medes,  moreover,  are  not  the 
Medes  of  the  classical  writers,  the  Manda,  or  'nomads,* 
of  the  cuneiform  texts,  but  the  Mada,  the  true  Medes 
of  the  Assyrian  inscriptions.  This  is  evident  partly 
because  they  are  associated  with  the  nations  of  the 
north,  and  not  with  Elam;  partly  because  they  are 
spoken  of  as  governed  by  'kings,'  and  not  by  a  single 
monarch.  The  Manda  of  Ekbatana  were  under  a 
single  ruler;  the  Medes  proper,  on  the  other  hand,  as 
we  know  from  the  monuments,  obeyed  a  number  of 
different  princes"  (p.  484).  [And  yet  we  are  told  that 
the  Manda  and  Medes  combined  to  form  the  Median 
empire.  Why  did  they  not  form  a  "Mandean  empire," 
if  as  alleged  it  was  "the  conquest  of  the  Manda"  that 
made  Cyrus  so  powerful  ?]  "In  Jer.  li,  27,  28,  Ararat  is 
still  a  formidable  power ;  like  Minni  it  has  not  as  yet 
been  absorbed  into  the  empire  of  Cyrus ;  and  in  place  of 
Astyages,  king  of  the  nomad  Manda  of  Ekbatana,  it 
is  'the  kings  of  the  Medes'  who  are  'consecrated  to  the 
holy  war'"  (486).  "The  place  of  the  Manda  over 
whom  Astyages  ruled  is  taken  by  the  Medes,  by  Minni, 
and  by  Ashkenaz."     [But  if  the  Manda  of  Ekbatana 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        23 

were  settled  in  one  habitation  or  territory  and  under 
one  king,  as  is  above  represented,  why  should  these 
settled  Ekbatanite  Manda  be  now  called  "the  nomad 
Manda  of  Ekbataiia" t]  *'The  country  of  Kurdistan 
he  (Merodach)  has  subjected  to  his  (Cyrus's)  feet" 
(505).  "As  yet  the  temple  thou  orderest  to  be  built 
(in  Haran),  the  people  of  the  Manda  surround  it,  and 
noisome  are  their  forces.  Merodach  again  spoke  to 
me:  the  people  of  the  Manda  of  whom  thou  speakest, 
they,  their  land,  and  the  kings  who  are  their  allies  exist 
no  more.  In  the  third  year,*  when  it  shall  arrive,  I  will 
cause  them  to  come,  and  Cyrus,  the  king  of  Anzan, 
their  little  servant,  with  his  little  army,  shall  overthrow 
the  widespread  people  of  the  Manda.  He  shall  capture 
Istuvegu,  the  king  of  the  people  of  the  Manda,  and 
bring  him  a  prisoner  to  his  own  country."  [This  hap- 
pened, on  Professor  Sayce's  theory,  not  later  than  the 
sixth  year  of  Nabonidos,  possibly  in  his  third  year, 
about  B.  C.  552  or  550  (H.  C.  and  M.,  pp.  500,  501, 
508) .  But  "widespread"  would  seem  to  be  an  exagger- 
ated description  of  this  kingdom  of  Ekbatana.  Be- 
sides, if  they  were  thus  easily  conquered,  how  could 
they  thus  combine  to  make  the  "powerful  Median 
empire"?] 

"If  it  is  startling  to  learn  that  Cyrus  was  In  reality 
an  Elamite  prince,  it  is  equally  startling  [  ?]  to  find  that 
Istuvegu,  or  Astyages,  was  king,  not  of  the  Medes,  but 
of  the  Manda."    ["Startling,"  possibly,  to  the  classical 


*  A  different  rendering  is  made  by  Professor  Sayce  himself  {R,  P.  iV,  S.,  pp.  i6g, 
170,  lines  26-29,  vol.  v.) 


24        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

or  secular  historians,  and  to  those  who  believe  in  or 
follow  them  only,  but  not  necessarily  to  the  Biblical; 
since,  singularly  enough,  Cyrus  is  never  once  in  the 
Bible  called  "king  of"  either  the  ''Manda"  or  the 
"Medes,"  but  is  several  times  named  ''king  of  Persia," 
once  ''king  of  Babylon."  True,  Daniel  writes  that  the 
kingdom  over  which  Belshazzar  ruled  was  "divided 
and  given  to  the  Medes  and  Persians;"  but  he  distinct- 
ly indicates  his  meaning  by  limiting  the  rule  of  the 
Median  king  Darius  to  the  kingdom  of  the  Chaldeans ; 
thus  distinguishing  this  from  all  other  parts  of  the  ex- 
tensive domain  which  originally  composed  the  kingdom 
as  left  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  that  which  had  fallen 
to  Cyaxares  (Ahasuerus)  I,  and  then  been  included  in 
his  empire  by  Cyrus  the  Persian.]  "As  we  have  seen 
in  an  earlier  chapter,  the  name  of  'Manda'  was  applied 
by  the  Babylonians  and  the  Assyrians  to  the  nomad 
tribes  who  at  times  threatened  their  eastern  and  north- 
ern borders.  The  astrological  tables  refer  to  a  period 
when  the  Manda  overran  Babylonia  itself;  when  Bel 
and  the  other  gods  of  Chaldea  fled  to  Elam  for  safety, 
and  the  barbarians  [i.  e.,  'the  Manda/  as  above]  ruled 
the  country  for  thirty  years.  It  may  be  that  the  disaster 
here  described  was  that  conquest  of  Chaldea  which  the 
fragments  of  Berossus  ascribe  to  the  Medes.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  Teuspa,  or  Teispes,  the  leader  of  the  Gimir- 
ra,  is  called  a  Manda  ['roving  warrior,'  by  Talbot] 
by  Esar-haddon,  and  an  inscription  of  Assurbanipal, 
recently  discovered  by  Mr.  Strong,  returns  thanks  to 
the  Assyrian  gods  for  the  defeat  of  that  'limb  of 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        25 

Satan,'  Tuktammu  of  the  Manda.  It  is  possible  that 
Tuktammu  (or  rather  Duktammu)  is  the  Lugdamis  of 
Strabo,  who  led  the  Kimmerians  [Manda]  into  Kilikia, 
from  whence  they  afterward  went  westward  and  burnt 
Sardis.  At  all  events,  we  must  see  in  him  a  forerunner, 
if  not  a  predecessor,  of  Istuvegu,  the  Astyages  of  the 
Greeks,  who  governed  the  Manda  of  Ekbatana.  ...  It 
would  seem  that  the  Manda  of  Ekbatana  were  the  Scyth- 
ians of  classical  history"  (520,  521).  From  the  above 
it  is  apparent  that  the  Kimmerians  (Gimirra)  and 
Scythians  were  "Manda."  It  is  hardly  probable  that 
Teuspa  the  Kimmerian  is  the  same  person  as  Teispes 
the  Achaemenian,  though  it  is  possible  that  in  a  sense 
just  above  hinted  at  the  cultured  Assyrians  and  Baby- 
lonians may  have  considered  all  the  peoples  north  and 
northeast  of  them  to  be  "Manda,"  or  barbarians.  "As 
we  have  seen,  Teuspa  the  Kimmerian  and  his  people  are 
termed  Manda  by  Esar-haddon,  and  in  the  inscriptions 
of  Darius  the  Gimirra  Umurgah  of  the  Babylonian  text 
correspond  with  the  Saka  Humuvarka  of  the  Persian 
text.  The  Saka  Humuvarka  are  the  Amyrgian  Sakae 
of  Herodotos  (vii,  64),  who,  he  tells  us,  were  "the 
Scythians  of  the  Greeks"  (520,  521). 

"Totally  distinct  from  the  Manda  were  the  Mada,  or 
Medes.  Their  land  lay  to  the  northeast  of  that  of 
Ekbatana  and  extended  as  far  as  the  shores  of  the 
Caspian"  (521).  But  "the  outposts  of  the  Medes  ex- 
tended westward  to  the  Halys."  The  Medes,  therefore, 
covered  all  the  land  north  of  the  Ekbatanites,  between 
them  and  the  Caspian,  and  westward  to  the  Halys, 


26        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

leaving,  therefore,  to  Ekbatana  apparently  but  a  small 
territory,  but  giving  to  the  Medes  an  immensely  greater 
possession  and  population.  Yet  this  somewhat  circum- 
scribed kingdom  of  the  Manda  of  Ekbatana  is  now  said 
to  have  been  the  mighty  power  whose  influence  was 
felt  all  over  Asia,  but  yet  utterly  failed  to  prevent  its 
name  from  being  lost  to  all  history,  and  its  place  to  be 
taken  therein  by  the  Medes,  on  this  theory,  an  inferior 
and  conquered  people.  Strangely,  too,  among  a  people 
of  rare  intelligence  and  unwearied  historical  research, 
so  near  to  the  time  when  the  Manda  must  have  achieved 
their  renown,  neither  Biblicist,  nor  Herodotos,  nor  any 
other  writer  had  discovered  the  blunder,  or  at  least 
attempted  the  task  undertaken  by  the  present  race  of 
interpreters,  to  give  the  proper  name  to  the  empire,  as 
the  Manda-Persian  instead  of  the  Medo-Persian  em- 
pire, so  that  the  following  might  not  have  been  needed 
at  this  late  date.  "When,  in  the  generations  which 
succeeded  Darius  Hystaspes,  Cyrus  became  the  founder 
of  the  Persian  empire  the  Medes  and  the  Manda  were 
confounded  one  with  the  other,  and  Astyages,  the 
suzerain  of  Cyrus,  was  transformed  into  a  Mede,  and 
the  city  of  Ekbatana  into  the  capital  of  a  Median  em- 
pire" (526).  Such  a  "transformation"  is  perhaps  with- 
out a  parallel  in  all  history.  But  if,  as  Professor  Sayce 
claims,  the  Manda  and  the  Medes  combined  to  form  the 
Median  empire,  the  transfer  was  already  real,  and 
Darius  Hystaspes  simply  accepted  the  transfer  already 
made,  as  did  also  the  Greek  historians:  but  still  the 
mystery  remains  as  to  why  and  how  this  process  had 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        27 

failed  to  be  noted  and  the  actual  fact  to  be  definitely 
stated. 

As  to  the  location  of  the  Median  territory,  we  may 
further  quote  as  follows  :  "Eastward  the  Lydian  empire 
stretched  to  the  Halys ;  there  it  met  the  outposts  of  the 
Median  monarch ;  westward  it  had  incorporated  into  its 
army  the  wretched  relics  of  the  once  formidable  Kim- 
merians.  .  .  .  The  Mada  zverc,  in  fact,  the  Kurdish 
tribes  who  lived  eastward  of  Assyria,  and  whose  terri- 
tory extended  as  far  as  the  Caspian"  (126).  To  this 
add  what  land  is  covered  by  the  following  description, 
that  ''their  [the  Medes]  land  lay  to  the  northeast  of 
that  of  Ekbatana,  and  extended  as  far  as  the  shores  of 
the  Caspian"  (521).  Thus  again  we  have  an  expanse 
compared  with  which  the  possessions  of  Istuvegu,  or 
Astyages,  if  limited  by  Assyria,  Elam,  Babylon  and 
Persia,  were  comparatively  insignificant,  if  he  did  not 
also  control  this  vast  region  and  ''widespread"  pop- 
ulation. 

In  passing  it  may  be  well  also  to  remember  that  (p. 
528)  it  is  asserted  that  Istuvegu  was  a  suzerain  of 
Cyrus,  as  is  also  claimed  by  the  Greek  writers,  a  some- 
what remarkable  coincidence,  and  suggestive  that  other 
parts  of  their  story  may  prove  to  be  correct.  The  truth 
of  this  suzerainty,  so  far  as  the  quoted  cuneiform  in- 
scriptions are  in  evidence,  seems  to  depend  altogether 
upon  the  words,  "their  little  servant"  (508),  reported 
by  King  Nabonidos,  and  applied  to  Cyrus  in  relation  to 
Istuvegu ;  but  which,  if  correctly  understood,  may  be 
admitted  as  sufficient  to  identify  Istuvegu  as  the  Asty- 


28         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

ages  of  the  later  historians,  and  in  so  far  be  confirm- 
atory of  both  accounts  and  of  this  suzerainty. 

These  extracts  have  been  transcribed  that  the  reader 
may  be  able  to  form  his  own  intelligent  judgment  as  to 
the  matters  in  controversy,  from  the  statements  from 
which  the  distinguished  author  and  others  have  reached 
the  conclusion  that  the  Manda,  and  not  the  Medes,  were 
the  people  who  should  have  been  named  as  the  con- 
querors of  Babylon  under  the  leadership  of  Cyrus, 
king  of  Persia. 

As  to  the  word  "Manda,"  it  will  be  seen  that  it  has 
quite  a  variety  of  applications  or  meanings.  It  is  ren- 
dered by  "nomad;"  is  the  equivalent  of  "Nod"  in 
Genesis  (pp.  95,  105,  126,  146,  197).  "The  nomad 
Skyths,  as  the  Babylonians  call  them"  (p.  451).  "Bar- 
barians who  overran  the  whole  country."  "Teuspa," 
a  Kimmerian,  is  called  a  "Manda,"  but  is  not  to  be 
confounded  with  Teispes  the  ancestor  of  Cyrus,  who  is 
a  Persian;  Esar-haddon's  inscription,  as  rendered  by 
Talbot,  being :  "And  Teispes  the  Kimmerian,  a  roving 
warrior,  whose  own  country  was  remote  in  the  province 
of  Khubusna,  him  and  all  his  army  I  destroyed"  (R.  P,, 
iii,  p.  115,  lines  6-9).  Here  "Manda"  is  roving,  i.  e., 
"nomad."  He  can  hardly  be  looked  upon  as  in  any 
way  related  to  Istuvegu. 

From  these  references  the  conclusion  seems  to  be 
fairly  reached  that  the  peoples  to  the  north  and  east  of 
the  Assyrians  and  Babylonians,  being  for  the  most  part 
of  a  different  ethnic  origin,  were  by  these  more  civilized 
and  cultured  people  known  or  described  under  the  gen- 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        29 

eral  term  of  "Manda,"  being  chiefly  nomadic  or  roving 
in  their  manner  of  Hfe ;  just  as  the  nations  not  of  Israel 
were  described  by  the  Hebrews  as  "Gentiles,"  and  as 
to  the  Greeks  and  Romans  other  peoples  were  largely 
known  as  "barbarians,"  the  first  from  their  uncertain 
and  wandering  habits  and  condition,  and  the  latter 
from  their  language  or  "manner  of  speech."  The  state- 
ment made  by  Professor  Sayce,  as  to  "the  people  of  the 
Manda"  of  Ekbatana,  that  they  were  under  one  ruler, 
while  the  Medes  were  spoken  of  as  governed  by 
"kings,"  and  not  by  a  single  monarch,  may  simply  mark 
a  stage  in  their  progress,  and  is  what  may  be  indicated 
in  the  Greek  accounts  as  having  been  ended  under  the 
first  king  Deiokes ;  their  condition  prior  to  this  ascend- 
ency having  been  of  the  tribal  or  clan  character,  each 
clan  having  its  king  or  chief. 

In  relation  to  Istuvegu,  if  he  was  the  ruler  of  the 
southern  Ekbatana  and  was  limited  to  that  circum- 
scribed province,  the  description  of  his  forces  ^^^^  ^^^^_ 
as  "the  widespread  people  of  the  Manda"  ft"  ^JSIfen^ 
is  certainly  a  gross  exaggeration,  but  is  ^^P'^^^- 
exactly  proper  if  under  this  name  were  comprehended 
all  the  diverse  peoples  and  tribes  who  had  com- 
mon cause  for  resisting  Cyrus;  and  if  there  were 
gathered  under  his  command  the  nomadic  tribes  of  the 
north  and  east  in  the  vast  regions  included  in  the 
geographical  description  of  territory  above  assigned 
to  the  Medes  and  Manda,  the  innumerable  multitudes 
who  were  restless  and  aggressive,  banding  themselves 
together,  ready  at  all  times  to  force  their  way  south- 


30         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

ward  into  regions  supposed  to  be  more  desirable  than 
their  own.  When  spoken  of  collectively  this  general 
designation  properly  characterized  the  entire  force, 
and  was  such  a  description  of  the  hordes  thus  brought 
together  as  might  naturally  come  from  the  Babylono- 
Chaldean  king  Nabonidos;  for  it  is  by  him,  and  not 
by  Cyrus,  that  the  word  is  used  of  the  peoples  massed 
under  Istuvegu.  On  any  other  theory  it  seems,  indeed, 
utterly  incredible  that  ''Manda"  should  supersede 
''Mada,"  or  "Medes,"  in  these  later  inscriptions,  and 
that  the  contrary  should  have  happened  to  ''Manda,"  to 
its  utter  exclusion  from  every  other  historical  record, 
until  these  very  modern  discoveries,  if  "the  people  of 
the  Manda"  had  possessed  a  well-recognized,  separate 
and  exclusive  local  realm  over  which  it  exercised  the 
rights  of  independent  sovereignty;  and  that  from  the 
very  time  of  the  taking  of  Babylon,  and  within  the  life- 
time of  persons  who  had  witnessed  its  overthrow, 
''Mede"  should  be  found  in  all  the  literature  of  Greek 
culture  and  elsewhere ;  that  to  the  Biblical  writers  the 
word  "Manda"  as  a  proper  name  should  be  utterly  un- 
known, while  the  Medes  are  recognized  as  a  distinct 
nationality,  and  as  conspicuously  in  the  founding  of  the 
new  imperium,  by  both  sacred  and  secular  waiters.  It 
seems  evident,  also,  from  the  use  of  the  term  "Manda" 
that  it  is  always  the  name  or  designation  of  a  people, 
and  never  the  name  of  a  place  or  country;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  Mede  is  the  name  of  a  distinct  and  sepa- 
rate nationality,  which  has  either  given  the  name  to  the 
country  in  which  the  thus  named  people  dwelt,  or  the 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        31 

name  of  the  country,  Media,  gave  the  name  "Mede" 
to  its  inhabitants.  That  ''Manda"  has  the  general  use 
and  meaning  herein  suggested  is  perhaps  the  latest  and 
modified  opinion  of  Professor  Sayce  himself,  as  found 
in  his  recent  paper  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  since 
therein  the  *'Manda,"  *'Umman  Manda,"  are  described 
as  ''the  nomad  nations  of  Kurdistan"  {LitteU's  Living 
Age,  February  6,  1897,  p.  371). 

With  this  compare  also  {H.  C.  and  M.,  p.  126)  :  "The 
Mada  [Medes]^  in  fact,  were  the  Kurdish  tribes  who 
lived  eastward  of  Assyria,  and  whose  territory  ex- 
tended as  far  as  the  Caspian  Sea"  (pp.  126,  127)  ;  that 
"the  Lydian  empire  stood  midway  between  the  Kim- 
merian  and  the  Mede ;"  and  that  "eastward  the  Lydian 
empire  stretched  to  the  Halys,  where  it  met  the  out- 
posts of  the  Median  monarch ;  westward  it  had  incor- 
porated into  its  army  the  wretched  remains  of  the  once 
formidable  Kimmerians."  But  the  Kimmerians  were 
"Manda,"  "the  nations  of  Kurdistan"  were  "Manda," 
i.  e.,  "the  Kurdish  clans  or  tribes,"  being  certainly  part 
or  the  whole  of  these  nations,  and  the  "Madai"  or 
"Medes"  being  "Kurdish  tribes,"  were  therefore 
"Manda"  or  "people  of  the  Manda."  Out,  therefore, 
of  this  confusion  there  is  reached  the  conclusion  that 
the  Medes  emerging  from  the  "Manda"  stage,  com- 
pelled the  haughty  and  pretentious  Semitic  Assyrians 
and  Babylonians  to  give  to  them,  an  Aryan  people, 
their  distinctive  name,  and  in  their  distinctive  name, 
Medes,  they  took  their  place  in  history  as  leaders  and 
rulers.    It  was  not  long  until  they  were  compelled  to 


32        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

share  their  authority  and  become  subordinate  to  their 
vassal,  an  Achaemenian,  a  prince  of  a  kindred  race, 
who,  under  the  guise  of  Medo-Persian,  became  the 
successor  to  imperial  greatness  and  control  of  these 
venerable  Semitic  monarchies,  then  forever  extin- 
guished.* 

For  the  truth  of  history,  and  not  because  the  conclu- 
sions reached  by  Professor  Sayce  as  to  the  titles  of 
The  nation-  ^yrus  at  all  affect  the  Biblical  statements  or 
gaf^titiei  ^of  ^^^  accuracy  of  the  sacred  writers,  these 
Cyrus.  conclusions  may  be  profitably  examined.    In 

♦Professor  Kent  {Jewish  People,  pp.  343,  344)  refers  to  an  inscription  "coining 
from  the  reign  of  Nabonidos,  which  contains  the  first  monumental  account  thus 
far  discovered  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Assyrian  empire  by  the  combined  attack  of 
the  northern  hordes  and  the  Babylonians.  It  also  records  the  first  advent  (?)  of 
the  Umman  Manda  as  an  organized,  united  people."  But  they  are  still  the  "  peo- 
ple of  the  Manda,"  rightly  styled  by  Professor  Kent  himself  as  "  northern  hordes," 
but  that  they  were  "  an  organized,  united  people"  there  is  in  the  new  find  no  more 
evidence  than  is  contained  in  the  foregoing  discussion. 

As  prefatory  to  the  translation  given  below,  Professor  Kent  writes  :  "  It  is  pos- 
sible (though  not  stated)  that  the  'he'  represents  Merodach  (Marduk),and  I  ven- 
ture to  interpolate  that  name  in  the  first  line,  which,  with  Nabopolassar,  already 
interpolated  in  the  printed  text,  sufficiently  supplies  the  dramatis  personay 

*'  He  (Merodach)  gave  to  him  (Nabopolassar)  a  helper  ;  he  furnished  for  him 
a  confederate.  The  king  of  the  Umman  Manda,  who  had  no  equal,  he  made  sub- 
ject to  his  (Nabopolassar' s)  command,  he  appointed  for  his  aid.  Above  and  below, 
right  and  left,  he  overthrew,  like  the  storm  flood,  he  took  vengeance  for  Babylon, 
he  increased  the  retribution  (?).  The  king  of  the  Umman  Manda,  the  fearless, 
destroyed  the  temples  of  the  gods  of  Assyria  altogether,  and  the  cities  in  the  terri- 
tory of  Akkad,  which  to  the  king  of  Akkad  had  been  hostile  and  to  his  help  had 
not  come.  He  destroyed  their  sanctuaries,  left  nothing  remaining,  laid  waste  their 
cities,  increased  (the  desolation),  like  a  devastating  hurricane.  Of  that  which  be- 
longed to  the  king  of  Babylon  through  the  work  of  Marduk,  whose  revenge  (?)  is 
plundering,  he  took  no  share.  To  the  sanctuaries  of  all  the  gods  he  turned  gra- 
ciously.    He  did  not  on  a  bed  of  rest  lay  himself  down  "  (lines  1-41). 

Evidently,  on  Kent's  theory,  Cyaxares  had,  as  we  have  seen  above  in  the 
case  of  Istuvegu,  gathered  together  these  "  northern  hordes  "  of  nomads,  and 
united  them  under  his  command  for  this  special  adventure  against  their  common 
enemy,  receiving  the  co-operation  of  the  rebellious  Babylonian  viceroy.  But  there 
is  herein  no  evidence  that  they  had  as  yet  any  "  organized  "  and  "  united  "  gov- 
ernment, or  fixed  habitation.     For  a  different  theory  see  p.  46. 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        33 

the  inscriptions  Cyrus  comes  first  into  view  as  ''king  of 
Anzan."  No  inscription  is  quoted  in  which  Cyrus 
claims  the  title  of  king  or  prince  of  Elam,  though  it 
is  certain  that  Elam  was  at  some  time,  either  by  force 
or  voluntarily,  brought  into  subjection  to  him;  nor  is 
there  any  record  that  clearly  warrants  the  positive  as- 
sertion that  "the  conqueror  of  Babylon  was  an  Elamite 
prince"  (pp.  518,  519).  This  assertion  is  evidently 
based  upon  the  following:  "A  lexical  tablet  from  the 
library  of  Nineveh  states  that  Anzan  was  the  country 
known  to  the  Semites  as  Elam,  on  the  eastern  border  of 
Babylonia,  and  Gudea,  one  of  the  earliest  of  Sumerian 
kings  whose  monuments  we  possess,  records  his  con- 
quest of  (the  city  of)  *Anzan,  in  the  country  of  Elam'" 
(R,  P.  N.  S.,  vol.  ii,  p.  8,  line  64).  [To  this  it  esems 
sufficient  to  say  that  a  "city  in  a  country"  is  not  the 
whole  of  a  country.]  "The  Elamite  kings  whose  capi- 
tal was  at  Susa  entitle  themselves  lords  [suzerains] 
'of  the  kingdom  of  Anzan,  kings  of  Shushan.'  [An- 
zan and  Shushan  are  not,  therefore,  one  and  the  same 
kingdom.  Anzan  may,  however,  have  been  tributary 
to  Shushan,  or  the  reverse.]  The  inscriptions  of  Sen- 
nacherib distinguished  Anzan  from  Parsuas,  or  Persia, 
and  [not  necessarily,  as  we  shall  see]  imply  that  it 
formed  part  [or  the  whole  of  Elam,  but]  of  the  do- 
minions of  the  Elamite  monarch.  [Just  the  same  as 
Parsuas,  Ellipi,  etc.,  etc.]  The  country  of  Anzan  took 
its  name  from  the  city  of  Anzan  [Anzan  was  not  there- 
fore Elam],  which  does  not  seem  to  have  been  far  dis- 
tant from  the  Babylonian  frontier.  It  was  the  union  of 
3 


34        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Anzan  and  Suza  or  Shushan  [where  is  the  evidence  of 
this  union?],  and  of  the  district  of  which  they  were 
severally  the  centers,  which  created  the  monarchy  of 
Elam.  [?]  [Of  this  statement  no  proof  whatever  is 
given,  and  that  union,  if  it  ever  existed,  may  not  have 
been  in  existence  in  the  time  of  Gudea,  many  centuries 
having  elapsed  since  Gudea  reigned.]*  In  becoming 
kings  of  Anzan  [a  part],  therefore,  Cyrus  and  his 
predecessors  became  kings  of  Elam.  [The  part,  there- 
fore, equals  the  whole.  But  why  did  they  not  claim  to 
be  kings  of  Elam,  the  whole,  rather  than  of  Anzan,  a 
part  ?  And  why  do  not  the  names  of  his  predecessors 
appear  in  the  list  of  the  kings  of  Elam  ?]  They  suc- 
ceeded to  the  ancient  inheritance  of  the  Elamite  sover- 
eigns, and  so  lost  the  purity  of  their  Persian  nation- 
ality" (p.  516).  But  even  if  this  were  true  they  did  not 
thereby  cease  to  be  Persians,  nor  did  Cyrus  forfeit  his 
right  nor  the  actual  succession  as  king  of  Persia. 

The  inscription  of  Sennacherib  may  be  given  thus: 
"The  men  of  Babylon"  sent  a  bribe  "to  Umman-minan, 
king  of  Elam,"  asking  his  help,  who  assembled  his 
army,  collected  his  chariots  and  wagons,  harnessed  his 
"horses  and  mares  to  their  yokes ;  the  nations  Parzush, 
Anzan,  Pasiru,  Illlpi,  and  the  men  of  Yashan,  Lakabri, 
...  the  cities  of  Beth-Kutlan,  etc.,  etc.,  ...  a  vast 
horde  of  allies  he  led  along  with  him"  (R.  P.,  vol.  i, 
pp.  48,  49).  From  these  extracts  it  will  be  noted  that 
Anzan,  like  Pasiru,  Illipi,  etc.,  was  one  of  the  allied 

♦Conjectured  to  have  reigned  between  the  sixth  and  eleventh  Egyptian 
dynasties,  about  B.  C.  4000  (/?.  P.  N.  5.,  vol.  i,  p.  204),  Hommel  puts  him  at  the 
beginning  of  the  third  millennium  {Anc,  Heb.  Trad.^  p.  33). 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        35 

countries  of  the  king  of  Elam,  an  ally,  but  not  neces- 
sarily any  more  Elam,  or  part  of  Elam,  from  this  state- 
ment, than  were  the  other  countries  and  cities  named  in 
the  same  connection  and  relation. 

It  is  somewhat  singular,  considering  the  stress  that  is 
laid  upon  this  claim  that  Cyrus  was  not  a  Persian,  but  an 
Elamite,  prince,  that  no  inscription  is  quoted  in  which 
Cyrus  himself  assumes  the  title  king  of  Elam,  or  that 
he  had  conquered  Elam.  Neither  is  there  any  quoted 
inscription  in  which  the  conquest  of  Persia  is  claimed, 
nor  yet  of  Media,  if  the  defeat  of  Istuvegu  was  not 
the  defeat  of  the  king  of  Media;  neither  does  Cyrus, 
in  the  quoted  inscriptions,  claim  as  his,  or  as  part  of  his 
dominions,  by  name,  Media,  or  Elam,  or  Persia;  and 
the  only  way  that  from  these  quoted  inscriptions  it  is 
known  that  he  was  king  of  Persia  is  that  Nabonidos 
so  names  him.  There  can  be  no  question  as  to  his  royal 
Persian  lineage.  That  is  attested  by  his  own  declara- 
tion, amplified  by  Darius  Hystaspes.  As  before  stated, 
on  his  authority,  the  Achaemenian  family  divided  into 
two  lines  after  Teispes,  one  line  as  rulers  of  Anzan, 
the  other  as  kings  of  Persia.  It  seems  certain  that 
while  Anzan  was  ruled  by  the  Persian  Achaemenians  as 
kings,  it  was  not  ruled  by,  or  as,  Elam.  For  among 
the  many  kings  of  Elam  which  are  named  in  the  in- 
scriptions, during  the  almost  continuous  warfare  be- 
tween Elam  and  the  combined  or  separate  forces  of 
Assyria  and  Babylonia,  not  one  of  the  names  mentioned 
by  Cyrus  as  his  predecessors  is  found.  While  it  is  pos- 
sible that  Anzan  was  in  alliance  with  Elam^  certainly 


36        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

so  against  Sennacherib,  and  prior  to  the  ascendency 
of  the  Persian  princes  as  early  as  Gudea  may  have  been 
under  the  rule  of  Elam,  there  is  no  indubitable  evidence 
In  the  quoted  inscriptions  or  reasonable  probability  that 
it  was,  under  the  Persian  dynasty,  consolidated  with 
either  Elam  or  Shushan. 

The  Persian  throne  may  have  come  to  Cyrus,  either 
through  the  declination  of  Hystaspes,  the  son  of  Arsa- 
mes,or  have  been  wrested  from  that  line  by  the  superior- 
ity of  the  king  of  Anzan ;  and  the  natural  inclination  of 
a  Persian  prince  would  lead  to  the  taking  of  the  title,  or 
to  the  adding  of  the  title  originally  in  his  house  to  that 
which  had  otherwise  come  to  his  line.  There  can  be 
no  question  but  that  in  the  invasion  of  Babylonia  by 
Cyrus  both  Media  and  Elam,  as  well  as  Anzan  and 
Persia,  were  subject  to  him ;  and  their  forces  being 
employed  against  Nabonidos  satisfy  all  that  is  ex- 
pressed by  Isaiah  in  his  "burden  of  the  desert  of  the 
sea:"  "Go  up,  O  Elam:  besiege,  O  Media"  (xiii,  17; 
xxi,  2)  ;  these  being  at  that  time  the  most  powerful 
of  the  nations,  restive  under  the  overshadowing  author- 
ity of  the  Assyrians  and  the  Chaldeans.  But  they  com- 
posed only  a  part  of  the  great  inundation  from  the 
north  which  came  under  the  leadership  of  Cyrus  and 
was  poured  out  upon  Mesopotamia  after  the  defeat  of 
Istuvegu,  or  Astyages.  It  is  perhaps  because  of  this 
fusion  of  the  heterogeneous  peoples  from  the  north, 
who  so  readily  accepted  Cyrus  instead  of  the  Mede, 
that  in  narrating  the  conflict  with  Istuvegu  the  names 
of  his  subjects  or  followers  are  not  mentioned,  and  the 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        37 

story  runs  thus:  ''Istuvegu  gathered  (his  forces)  and 
marched  against  Cyrus,  king  of  Anzan,  and  (joined) 
battle ;  the  army  of  Astyages  revolted  against  him,  and 
seized  (him)  with  the  hands.  Cyrus  marched  against 
Ekbatana,*  the  royal  city"  (p.  500).  It  is  significant 
that,  while  his  capital  is  named,  Istuvegu  is  not  named 
in  this  inscription  as  the  leader  of  any  one  people,  as, 
for  instance,  the  Medes ;  but  by  Nabonidos  in  another 
inscription  this  mass  of  people  is  covered  by  the  general 
term  for  the  northerly  peoples,  the  restless,  nomadic, 
shifting  "Manda."  For  in  his  preparations  to  suppress 
the  revolt  of  Cyrus  the  Median  king  would  certainly 
gather  his  forces  from  among  his  various  feudatories 
and  allies,  among  whom  the  nomad  characteristics  very 
largely  predominated,  and  as  he  ruled  over  them  all, 
and  his  defeat  affected  the  relation  not  only  of  the 
Medes,  but  of  all  the  more  numerous  peoples  under  his 
direction  and  control,  a  comprehensive  title,  "king  of 
the  Manda,"  is  given  him  by  the  Chaldean  king,  giving 
thereby  a  vastly  greater  significance  and  importance  to 
the  victory  of  Cyrus  than  would  have  been  given  it  if 
the  representation  had  been  that  it  was  simply  the  vic- 
tory of  the  king  of  Anzan  over  the  king  of  Media, 
instead  of  over  "the  widespread  people  of  the  Manda" 
(508).  For  these  and  other  reasons  which  may  or 
might  be  given  it  is  confidently  believed  that  "the  con- 
queror of  Babylon  was  [not]  an  Elamlte  prince." 
It  may  now  be  suggested  that  the  readers  of  The 

♦Certainly  the  northern  city  of  that  name,  since  Cyrus  was  northeast  of  Ar- 
bcla  when  he  crossed  the  Tigris  (p.  501)  in  his  descent  upon  Babylonia, 


38         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments  will  do  well  to 
remember  that  nothing  is  said  in  the  Biblical  account 
which  either  contradicts  or  affirms  the  statements 
claimed  as  taught  by  the  secular  historian,  that  Cyrus 
was  an  idolater,  and  had  adopted  or  practiced  the  wor- 
ship of  Bel  and  Merodach  and  other  Babylonian  gods ; 
and  that,  while  it  may  be  true  that  "the  story  of  Herod- 
otos  was  repeated  by  historian  after  historian,"  it  is 
not  true  that  ''the  story  of  Daniel  seemed  to  set  its 
seal  upon  it"  (p.  523),  unless  absolute  silence  as  to  a 
story  not  then  written  is  thus  unwarrantably  to  be  so 
construed.  For,  as  Herodotos  had  not  written  his  story 
in  the  interim  between  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Cyrus, 
when  Daniel  is  said  to  have  lived  and  written  his  book, 
it  follows  that  if  Daniel  did  write  in  that  interim,  the 
book  then  written  could  by  no  possibility  contain  any 
notice  of  the  story  of  Herodotos  whatever,  and  his 
silence  is  in  perfect  accord  with  the  date  claimed  as  that 
of  Daniel's  lifetime  and  authorship.  This  silence  must, 
indeed,  be  urged  as  an  incidental  and,  therefore,  strong 
corroboration  of  the  claim  for  the  early  date  of  the 
book  of  Daniel,  for  if  it  had  been  written  after  the  era 
of  Herodotos,  Ctesias,  Nicholas,  et  al,  it  can  scarcely 
be  conceived  or  imagined  that  the  writer  could  have 
failed  to  put  into  it  a  Grecian  coloring  and  given  it 
more  in  detail,  or  as  he  found  it  in  the  books  and  tra- 
ditions of  that  later  period.  The  only  reference  to  the 
ending  of  the  rule  of  the  dynasty  represented  by  Na- 
bonidos  and  Belshazzar,  and  the  advent  of  the  Medo- 
Persian  kingdom,  is  found  in  connection  with  the  inter- 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        39 

pretation  of  "the  handwriting  on  the  wall,"  closing 
with  the  words,  *Thy  kingdom  is  divided,  and  given  to 
the  Medes  and  Persians,"  and  the  statement  that  "in 
that  night  was  Belshazzar  the  king  of  the  Chaldeans 
slain.  And  Darius  the  Median  took  the  kingdom,  being 
about  threescore  and  two  years  old"  (v,  28-31)  ;  state- 
ments not  found  in  Herodotos,  or  other  named  histori- 
ans, and  containing  no  reference  whatever  to  Cyrus, 
but  with  terse  accuracy  supplements  and  explains  the 
inscriptions,  both  he  and  they  giving  a  Median  ruler  to 
the  Chaldeans,  and  empire  to  the  Persians. 

It  seems,  at  least,  very  doubtful  that  the  form  of  the 
inscriptions  at  all  warrants  the  positive  statement  that 
"We  now  know  that  the  siege  never  took     Daniel  and 

Herodotos  as 

place     (S23).    A  few  days  before  Babylon  to  siege  and 

^  ^-^   -J^  J  J  taking    of 

was  taken  there  was  fighting  not  far  from  Babylon, 
the  city,  and  two  days  before  the  capture  Sippara  was 
taken  "without  fighting,"  which  may  simply  mean  that 
the  results  of  the  previous  beleaguering  and  "fighting" 
had  been  such  that  these  cities,  seeing  the  hopelessness 
of  further  resistance,  allowed  the  Persians  to  enter 
without  further  conflict ;  or  it  is  even  plausibly  possible 
that,  operating  as  they  had  along  the  river,  they  may 
have  done  the  very  thing  described  in  the  current  his- 
tories, and  so  diverted  the  course  of  the  river  as  to  make 
fighting  altogether  unnecessary.  During  the  month  of 
June  they  had  certainly  been  forcing  their  way  toward 
Babylon  by  "fighting."  "Some  persons  were  slain," 
and  only  the  cities  were  entered  "without  fighting," 
the  previous  fighting  evidently  having  prepared  the 


40        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

way  for  the  peaceful  "taking"  of  the  cities  which  had 
been  awed  into  submission  by  the  previous  contests  and 
the  ostentatious  display  of  their  military  resources. 
Of  Merodach  it  is  said :  ''The  great  lord  to  his  city  of 
Babylon  he  summoned  his  march;  he  bade  him  also 
take  the  road  to  Babylon ;  like  a  friend  and  a  comrade 
he  went  at  his  side.  The  weapons  of  his  vast  army, 
whose  number  like  the  waters  of  a  river  could  not  be 
known,  were  marshaled  in  order,  and  it  spread  itself 
at  his  feet.  Without  fighting  and  battle  (Merodach) 
caused  him  to  enter  into  Babylon"  (p.  505).  Neither 
the  previous  statements  nor  the  confusing  comparison 
for  enumeration  of  the  weapons  of  his  vast  army  to 
"the  waters  of  a  river"  absolutely  forbid  the  possibility 
of  previous  operations,  such  as  are  described  by  the 
Greeks,  as  making  fighting  altogether  useless  for  pre- 
venting the  occupation  of  the  city,  and  it  is  not  im- 
possible that  the  reverse  of  the  following  statement  is 
true,  viz. :  "The  siege  and  capture  of  Babylon  by  Cyrus 
is  really  a  reflection  into  the  past  of  the  actual  sieges 
undergone  by  the  city  in  the  reigns  of  Darius  Hystaspes 
and  Xerxes"  (p.  524).  In  fact,  taking  Isa.  xliv,  2y, 
"The  Lord  saith  to  the  deep.  Be  dry,  and  I  will  dry  up 
thy  rivers,"  or  Jer.  li,  36,  "I  will  dry  up  her  sea,  and 
make  her  springs  dry,"  there  is  more  ground  for  as- 
suming that  the  action  of  Cyrus  in  thus  "drying  up" 
by  diverting  the  course  of  the  river  suggested  to  his 
contemporary  subject,  Darius,  son  of  Hystaspes,  the 
course  which  was  afterward,  when  on  the  throne,  un- 
successfully pursued  by  him  in  his  attempt  at  reducing 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        41 

the  city  ^'without  fighting;"  this  result  under  Cyrus, 
this  weakness,  pusillanimity  of  the  defenders  of  Baby- 
lon at  this  time,  being  described  by  both  these  prophets, 
Herodotos  also,  consistently  with  himself,  asserting 
that  Darius  copied  after  Cyrus,  as  will  be  hereinafter 
shown. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  as  highly  suggestive  that  Daniel 
names  no  king  of  Babylon  or  of  the  Chaldeans  as  sub- 
sequent to  or  as  the  successor  of  Darius  the  Median, 
Cyrus  himself  having  assumed  the  title  ''king  of  Baby- 
lon" and  established  that  city  as  the  capital  of  the  em- 
pire. As  subordinate  to  him,  Cambyses,  in  this  third 
year  of  Cyrus  (536),  is,  as  we  shall  see,  conspicuous 
in  the  ceremonies  at  the  funeral  of  the  dethroned  queen, 
and  it  is  this  third  year  of  Cyrus  which  in  Daniel  is  last 
mentioned;  he  himself,  apparently,  having  retired,  per- 
haps for  greater  privacy,  somewhere  on  the  Tigris, 
outside  of  Babylon  (ch.  x,  4). 

In  the  matters  thus  far  treated  nothing  has  been 
found  necessarily  inconsistent  with  what  is  written  in 
Holy  Scripture;  rather,  the  sacred  writings  and  the 
inscriptions  seem  to  be  mutually  confirmatory,  or  illus- 
trative one  of  the  other.  We  turn  now  to  matters 
more  directly  pertaining  to  the  chronology  and  history 
of  the  period,  and  the  persons  named  by  the  Biblical 
writers  as  living  in  the  beginning  of  the  Persian  do- 
minion. Among  these  is  Darius  the  Median,  to  whom 
attention  may  now  be  directed  in  an  endeavor  to  his 
identification. 


42         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 


n.  War  of  Cyrus  with  Astyages  (Istuvcgu),  and 
Date  of  His  Overthrow 

The  tablet  on  which  the  story  of  the  conflict  between 
Cyrus  and  Istuvegu  (or  Astyages)  and  also  of  the  tak- 
ing of  Babylon  is  inscribed  seems  to  have  been  chrono- 
logically arranged,  and  is  termed  "The  Annalistic 
Tablet  of  Cyrus"  (pp.  499-503).  Of  this  Professor 
Sayce  writes:  "The  beginning  of  the  tablet  is  unfor- 
tunately broken.  Where  the  sense  first  becomes  clear, 
mention  is  made  of  the  country  of  Hamath,  in  which 
the  Babylonian  army  had  encamped  during  the  month 
of  Tebet  (December).  In  the  following  year  the  army 
marched  to  Mount  Amanus  and  the  Mediterranean." 
After  this  occurs  the  story  of  the  victory  of  Cyrus  over 
Astyages.  No  year  or  date  is  given  in  this  or  the  pre- 
ceding fragments  of  the  inscription.  But  a  subsequent 
paragraph  which  seems  to  have  no  connection  with  or 
reference  to  this  victory  over  Astyages,  or,  indeed,  to 
Cyrus  at  all,  is  dated  in  the  seventh  year  of  Nabonidos ; 
and  from  this  it  has  been  inferred  that  the  defeat  and 
dethronement  of  Astyages  (Istuvegu)  took  place  in  the 
sixth  year  of  Nabonidos,  B.  C.  550-549-  But  the  indi- 
cations are  that  the  war  between  Persia  and  Media, 
which  resulted  in  the  overthrow  of  Astyages,  and  al- 
most at  the  beginning  of  which  Cambyses,  the  father 
of  Cyrus,  was  slain,  was  ended  in  a  single  year.  This 
death  thus  early  made  Cyrus  king  of  Anzan,  and  the 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus         43 

overthrow  of  Astyages  at  its  close  gave  him  in  the  same 
year  the  throne  of  Media.  But  the  trend  of  opinion 
seems  to  be  that  Cyrus  reigned  twenty-nine  years.  (  So 
Rawlinson,  Anc.  Mon.,  vol.  iii,  p.  388.)  The  date  given 
by  Ptolemy  for  his  last  year  is  B.  C.  529,  from  which  it 
follows  that  his  first  year  was  B.  C.  558,  which  was, 
according  to  Ptolemy,  the  third  year  (558)  Fail  of  as- 
before  the  accession  of  Nabonidos  to  the  ^58. 
throne  of  Babylon  (555).  If,  therefore,  the  death 
of  Cambyses,  by  which  Cyrus  at  once  became 
king  of  Anzan,  and  the  fall  of  Astyages,  by  which  later 
he  became  king  of  Media,  occurred  in  the  same  year, 
the  true  date  of  the  paragraph  containing  the  story  of 
this  victory  must  be  this  earlier  year  (558),  and  not  the 
sixth  year  of  Nabonidos  (550-549). 

An  indication  of  this  earlier  date  for  the  dethrone- 
ment of  Astyages  may  be  found  in  an  inscription  of 
Nabonidos  (pp.  507-509,  and  R.  P.  N.  S.,  vol.  v,  p.  169, 
etc.),  from  which  we  learn  that  "E-khul-khul,  the 
temple  of  the  Moon-god  which  is  in  the  city  of  Kharran 
(Haran),  had  been  destroyed  by  the  people  of  the 
Manda,  and  with  it  the  city  of  Haran  had  also  been 
caused  to  go  into  ruin."  As  related  to  this  ruin,  Na- 
bonidos writes :  "At  the  beginning  of  my  long-enduring 
reign  a  dream  was  revealed  to  me  by  Merodach,  the 
great  lord,  and  Sin,  the  light  of  heaven  and  earth ;  they 
stood  on  either  side  of  me.  Merodach  spake  with  me : 
'O  Nabonidos,  king  of  Babylon,  with  the  horses  of 
thy  chariot,  bring  bricks,  build  E-khul-khul ;  let  Sin, 
the  great  lord,  establish  his  seat  within  it.'    Reverently 


44        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

I  spoke  to  the  lord  of  the  gods,  Merodach :  The  temple 
which  thou  orderest  to  be  built,  the  people  of  the  Man- 
da  surround  it,  and  noisome  are  their  forces.'  Mero- 
dach again  spoke  with  me :  The  people  of  the  Manda 
of  whom  thou  speakest,  they,  their  land,  and  the  kings 
who  marched  beside  them  (their  allies)  exist  no  more. 
In  the  third  year,  when  it  came,  he  caused  him  to  come, 
and  Cyrus,  the  king  of  Anzan,  his  little  servant,  with 
his  small  army,  overthrew  the  widespread  people  of  the 
Manda.  Istuvegu  (Astyages),  the  king  of  the  people 
of  the  Manda,  he  captured  and  brought  him  prisoner 
to  his  own  country'  "  (R.  P.  N,  S.,  vol.  v,  p.  169).  To 
this  Professor  Sayce  appends  a  note,  suggesting  all 
after  the  words  "exist  no  more,"  to  be  "future ;"  i.  e., 
"in  the  third  year  when  it  shall  arrive,  I  will  cause  them 
to  come,  and  Cyrus,  the  king  of  Anzan,"  etc.  This  form 
is  followed  substantially  in  H.  C.  and  M.  and  in  his 
article  in  the  new  Bible  Dictionary.  But  the  lines  24, 
25  preceding  are  not  changed,  and  certainly  declare 
what  had  already  happened,  and  of  which  Nabonidos 
was  ignorant,  namely,  that  three  years  before  "the  be- 
ginning of  his  long-lasting  reign"  Merodach  had 
caused  the  clearing  away  of  the  "noisome"  Manda. 
It  is  to  be  understood  not  as  a  prediction,  but  as  a 
statement  of  an  already  accomplished  result.  For  the 
order  of  Merodach  to  Nabonidos  was  for  immediate 
obedience,  at  once  to  go,  rebuild  at  Haran ;  and  the  only 
objection  of  the  king  was  based  upon  what  he  believed 
to  be  the  actual  existing  condition,  that  the  Manda  were 
still  there  in  force.     It  will  be  seen  that  immediate 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        45 

obedience  to  this  imperative  order,  if  matters  were  as 
Nabonidos  supposed,  would  necessarily  have  involved 
him  in  a  serious  war  with  a  great  empire,  with  all 
chances  against  him,  and  that  his  force  would  be  over- 
powered. A  defeat  of  Istuvegu  and  a  withdrawal  of 
the  Manda  under  Cyrus,  if  not  to  occur  until  "the  third 
year"  from  the  present,  could  give  no  assurance  of 
present  or  immediate  success,  nor  be  any  relief  from 
present  embarrassment,  nor  protection  from  dangers 
now  impending.  But  the  information  that  the  removal 
of  this  "noisome"  force  had  taken  place  so  long  as  three 
years  before  this  order  was  given  at  once  showed  that 
the  way  was  open  for  instantaneous  action  and  obedi- 
ence. That  this  interpretation  accords  well  with  the 
Ptolemaic  canon  and  other  chronological  data  may  be 
seen  in  the  appended  Chronological  Conspectus.  Tak- 
ing Ptolemy's  date  (B.  C.  555)  for  the  beginning  of  the 
reign  of  Nabonidos,  the  third  year  subsequent  to  the 
overthrow  of  Astyages  (in  B.  C.  558),  when  the  death 
of  his  father  during  the  war  had  made  vacant  for 
Cyrus,  then  forty  years  old,  the  throne  of  Anzan,  and 
we  have,  as  above  stated,  the  true  beginning  of  the 
twenty-nine  years'  reign  of  this  "Great  King,"  as  well 
of  Anzan  as  of  the  vast  empire  of  the  Medes,  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  current  histories,  included  Elam  and  the 
Persian  kingdom  of  the  Achaemenidse. 


46        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

The  Bearing  of  the  Newly  Found  "Stele"  of  Na- 

BONIDOS  ON  THE  PRECEDING  DaTE,  B.  C.  558. 

The  Rev.  C.  J.  Ball,  in  his  late  work,  Light  from 
the  East,  represents  that  Sin  in  anger  had  caused  the 
The  inscrip-  ''Umman-Manda  folk"  to  make  a  raid  and 

^^^"*  destroy  his  house  in  Haran,  and  that  Bel 
"took  pity  on  the  city  and  house,  in  the  beginning  of  my 
(Nabonidos's)  eternal  reign."  Merodach  and  Sin  di- 
rected him  to  restore  the  ruined  "dwelling"  in  Haran. 
"Reverently,  I  (Nabonidos)  spake  unto  Merodach, 
'That  house  which  thou  hast  commanded  to  build,  the 
Umman-Manda  folk  have  encompassed  it,  and  their 
forces  are  strong/  But  IMerodach  spake  unto  me: 
'The  Umman-Manda  which  thou  hast  mentioned,  they, 
their  country,  and  their  kings  that  marched  with  them, 
are  no  more,'  In  the  third  year,  when  it  came,  they 
(i.  e.,  the  gods)  caused  him  (i.  e.,  Cyrus)  to  march 
forth,  and  Cyrus  king  of  Anzan,  his  (Merodach's) 
young  servant,  with  his  few  troops  routed  the  numer- 
ous Umman-Manda  folk"  (pp.  208,  209). 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  translation  differs  from  that 
of  Professor  Sayce,  both  in  the  supplying  of  the  per- 
Rendering  sonal  names  and  the  distribution  to  them  of 
changed,  jj^^  several  parts.  Cyrus  In  this  is  the  young 
servant  of  Merodach,  and  not  of  Istuvegu  or  Astyages, 
who  thereby  fails  of  recognition  as  his  suzerain.  These 
differences,  however,  do  not  materially  affect  the  essen- 
tials of  my  statements  and  conclusions  in  the  foregoing 
discussion  or  Investigation  on  the  basis  of  the  other 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        47 

rendering.  It  still  remains  true  that  in  the  beginning 
of  the  reign  of  Nabonidos  he  was  told  that  at  that  very 
time,  to  wit,  in  the  beginning  of  the  first  year  of  his 
reign,  the  "Umman-Manda,  they,  their  country,  and 
the  kings  that  marched  with  them,  are  no  more," 
Merodach,  according  to  this  rendering,  then  adds  that : 
"In  the  third  year,  when  it  came,  they  (i.  e.,  the  two 
gods)  caused  him  (i.  e.,  Cyrus)  to  march  forth,"  etc. 
{ut  Slip.),  by  whom  the  Umman-Manda  folk  were 
routed.  As  Merodach  had  just  assured  Nabonidos 
that  the  Manda  had  already  lost  their  country,  and  that 
the  kings  which  marched  with  them  "were  no  more," 
and  now  Nabonidos  affirms  that  Cyrus  was  the  "serv- 
ant" of  these  gods,  or  their  agent  in  doing  this,  it  neces- 
sarily follows  that  what  he  had  done  for  them  had  either 
been  done  in  that  year,  but  before  this  conversation 
was  had,  or  some  time  previously  to  the  beginning  of 
that  first  year  of  this  dreamer's  reign.  Fortunately, 
however,  he  solves  the  problem  by  fixing  the  date  as  in 
the  preceding  third  year.  This,  when  it  came,  was 
seized  upon  by  the  gods  as  the  opportune  time  in  which 
to  avenge  upon  the  "Umman-Manda  folk"  their  sacri- 
legious destruction  of  Sin's  favorite  abode.  According- 
ly, being  thus  assured  that  the  "noisome  Manda"  had, 
in  the  third  previous  year,  been  overthrown,  his  fears 
took  flight,  and  he  at  once  prepared  for  the  execution 
of  their  commands.  He  certainly  did  not  wait  for  or 
during  a  subsequent  three  years,  or  for  a  subsequent 
third  year,  for  the  Light  from  the  'East  quotes  him  as 
ejaculating  exultlngly :  "I  tarried  not,  I  drew  not  back. 


48         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

I  was  not  idle.  I  put  my  numerous  troops  on  the 
march;  from  the  land  of  Gaza,  on  the  borders  of  the 
land  of  Egypt,  from  the  Upper  Sea,  beyond  the  Eu- 
phrates, unto  the  Lower  Sea,"  etc.  (p.  209). 

It  seems,  therefore,  that  I  must  retain  my  contention 
that  the  overthrow  of  Astyages,  and  the  rout  of  the 
Former  in-  **trekking"   hordes,   which,   with   his   own 
flrmed^as  ?o  Medes,  were  under  his  command,  took  place 
^^^^'  in  cir.  B.  C.  558.    The  distinguished  author 

of  the  Light  from  the  East,  taking  the  date  to  be  the 
third  year  subsequently  (i.  e.,  553),  instead  of  the  third 
year  preceding  the  beginning  of  the  "eternal  reign"  of 
Nabonidos,  writes :  "This  inscription  enables  us  to  de- 
termine precisely  the  date  of  the  fall  of  Nineveh.  In 
Column  X  it  is  said  that  fifty-four  years  had  elapsed 
since  the  ruin  of  the  temple  of  Sin  at  Haran  by  the 
Umman-Manda,  or  Medes,  when  Nabonidos  set  about 
restoring  it.  As  he  relates  elsewhere  (see  p.  208),  he 
was  divinely  bidden  to  undertake  this  work  in  the  first 
year  of  his  reign  (i.  e.,  in  B.  C.  556)  [elsewhere  555], 
but  was  only  able  to  do  it  three  years  later,  when  Cyrus 
had  broken  the  power  of  the  Umman-Manda  (i.  e.,  in 
553).  Adding  54  to  this  date,  we  get  B.  C.  607  as  the 
year  of  the  fall  of  Nineveh,  and  the  final  ruin  of  As- 
syria" (p.  212).  Of  the  apparent  assumption  that  the 
Umman-Manda  were  indubitably  and  always  Medes, 
it  may  be  said,  in  passing,  that  it  seems  to  have  been 
herein  shown,  by  the  usage  of  this  name,  that,  while  in 
Assyrian  and  Babylonian  generalizations  of  foreign  and 
especially  of  northern  ethnic  races  the  Medes  were  very 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        49 

often  counted  among  the  ''Umman-Manda  folk,"  yet 
it  is  also  evident  that  all  Manda  were  not  ''Medes." 

Without  wavering  in  the  belief  that  B.  C.  607,  as 
otherwise  ascertained,  is  the  true  date  for  the  fall  of 
Nineveh,  it  is  very  evident  that  if  we  must     Date  of  fail 

1  ,  -.  1      ■,      ^    1  ...of    Nineveh 

depend  upon  this  method  of  determinine:  it  affirmed   by 

^  ^  °  Jeremiah's 

there  must  be  positive  proof  that  the  ruin  prediction, 
of  the  temple  in  Haran  and  that  of  Nineveh  occurred 
in  the  selfsame  year.  Now,  so  far  as  any  such  proof  is 
apparent  in  this  book — and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
a  similar  method  in  Hastings's  new  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible  (vol.  i,  p.  190) — it  is  claimed  to  be  found  in  the 
following,  from  an  inscription  of  Nabonidos :  "Column 
I,  I,  7.  To  Babylon  he  went,  he  laid  the  temples  in  the 
dust,  ruined  the  sculptures,  destroyed  the  tablets  of  the 
divine  laws,  took  the  hand  of  the  Prince  Merodach,  and 
brought  him  to  Asshur.  According  to  the  wrath  of  the 
god  he  did  unto  the  land.  The  Prince  Merodach  re- 
laxed not  his  anger ;  for  twenty-one  years  in  Asshur  he 
occupied  his  dwelling  place.  After  days  (i.  e.,  a  long 
while)  the  appointed  time  came ;  then  was  appeased  the 
wrath  of  the  king  of  the  gods,  the  lords  (sing.?)  :  of 
E-SAGGiL  and  Babylon  he  was  mindful,  the  abode  of 
his  lordship.  The  king  of  Assyria  who  in  Merodach's 
wrath  had  wrought  the  ruin  of  the  land,  the  son  the 
issue  of  his  own  body,  with  the  sword  smote  him.  Col- 
umn II. ...  as  a  helper  He  (Merodach?),  as  an  ally  He 
made  him  possess.  The  king  of  the  Umman-Manda, 
who  had  not  an  equal,  he  [Nabopolassar?]  subdued; 

at  his  bidding  he  made  him  march  to  his  assistance. 
4 


so         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

[Abo]ve  and  below,  [right]  and  left,  like  a  flood  he 
overwhelmed ;  he  avenged  Babylon ;  he  multiplied 
corpses  (lit.,  bones).  The  king  of  the  Umman-Manda, 
the  fearless,  ruined  all  the  temples  of  the  god[s]  of 
the  land  of  Assyria ;  and  the  cities  on  the  border  of  the 
land  of  Accad,  which  had  revolted  against  the  king  of 
Accad,  and  had  not  gone  to  his  assistance,  he  destroyed, 
and  of  their  sanctuaries  (walls?)  he  left  not  any;  he 
laid  waste  their  cities.  The  king  of  Babylon,  like  a 
flood,  carried  beyond  bounds  the  work  of  Merodach, 
who  had  intrusted  him  with  sway.  He  put  not  his 
hands  to  the  commands  of  any  (other)  gods.  He  pros- 
pered, and  lay  not  down  on  the  bed  of  idleness  or  re- 
pose" (pp.  212-214). 

The  account  given  by  Hommel  in  Hastings's  new 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible  reads  thus :  "It  was  in  his  day 
Hommei's  (^-  ^•'  Sin-shar-iskun's)  that  the  swamping 
-  ^c<50"^^-  of  interior  Asia  by  the  Sakean  Scythians 
took  place.  This  was  only  the  prelude  to  the  end.  As 
a  newly  discovered  cylinder  of  the  Babylonian  king  Na- 
bonidos  relates,  fifty-four  years  before  the  consecration 
of  the  temple  of  Sin  in  Haran,  which  had  been  de- 
stroyed by  the  Manda  hordes,  a  Median  king,  who  was 
probably  called  Arbak,  [Arbaces?]  working  in  conjunc- 
tion, as  the  cylinder  just  mentioned  clearly  proves,  with 
Nabopolassar  (Belesys),  razed  to  the  ground  the  fa- 
mous Assyrian  capital.  Nineveh  probably  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Medes  in  607,  after  a  two  years'  siege, 
since  the  completion  of  the  temple  of  Sin  seems  to  be- 
long to  somewhere  about  the  third  year  of  Nabonidos 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        51 

(553)."  To  this  a  note  is  appended :  *'A  clear  allusion 
to  this  name  (Arbak)  is  found  in  Nabonidos's  cylinder 
inscription:  'Vengeance  took  (iriba  tuk-ti)  the  fearless 
king  of  Manda"  (vol.  i,  p.  190). 

From  the  same  inscription  both  Ball  and  Hommel  ar- 
rive at  the  conclusion  that  the  third  year  of  the  other 
inscription  must  be  counted  downward,  and  ^^^^  ^^^^ 
that  the  sacking  or  ruin  of  Sin's  temple  was  NlneveiilB.c! 
in  the  same  year  as  the  ruin  of  Nineveh,  the  ^^^* 
date  being  thought  to  be  clearly  fixed  by  these  inscrip- 
tions. There  is,  however,  good  reason  to  doubt  this. 
From  the  same  inscriptions,  I  have  put  the  date  of  that 
ruin  at  B.  C.  558.  The  name  Nineveh  is  not  found  at 
all  in  the  inscription.  The  king  to  whom  reference  is 
made  in  the  preceding  paragraph  of  the  tablet  is,  in- 
disputably, Sennacherib,  and  what  was  written  im- 
mediately after  is  lost  by  the  mutilation  of  the  stele. 
The  inserted  name,  Nabopolassar,  is  a  conjectural  in- 
terpolation by  the  translator,  and  may  or  may  not  be 
correct.  If  the  uncapitalized  ''he"  and  "his"  refer  to 
this  person,  then  the  "Umman-Manda,"  whom,  it  is 
said,  "he  subdued,"  could  not  have  been  Medes.     For 

the  Medes,  certainly,  never  were  "subdued" 

Another 
by  Nabopolassar,  nor  compelled  to  do  "his   name   than 

bidding."    If,  however,  it  is  contended  that   ^^f^  ^^'^^ 

they  must  here  be  recognized  as  Medes,  then  ^®""^* 

some  other  name  than  that  of  Nabopolassar,  or  with 

that  name,  must  be  inserted.     Possibly  the  name  of 

Esar-haddon  might  be  suggested,  who  certainly  did 

subdue  the  Medes,  and  whose  "few  years  of  sov- 


52        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

ereignty/'  writes  McCurdy,  "were  full  of  action, 
crowned  with  rare  success"  (vol.  ii,  p.  348) — a  state- 
ment in  singular  agreement  with  the  tribute  of  this  in- 
scription to  the  ruler  to  whom  reference  is  made :  "He 
prospered,  and  lay  not  down  on  the  bed  of  idleness  and 
repose." 

Column  III  is  unfortunately  lost.     It  is,  however, 

somewhat  suggestive  that  when  the  narrative  becomes 

Esar-had-  readable    on    Column    IV   the    writer    has 

don  not  ad- 
missible,        reached  the  reign  of  Nergal-sharezer,  the 

murderer  of  the  son  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  It  is  not  at 
all  improbable  that  Column  III  contained  the  story  of 
Assurbanipal,  the  son  of  Esar-haddon,  and  thus  was 
given  a  continuous  synopsis  of  the  Assyrio-Babylonian 
history  down  to  Nabonidos,  who  in  Columns  V,  VI  and 
X  introduces  himself  as  the  writer,  and,  as  in  his  other 
inscriptions,  narrates  a  dream  and  tells  of  himself  and 
his  own  doings.  But  the  difficulties  which  confront  a 
satisfactory  interpretation  of  the  remainder  of  this  par- 
agraph seem  not  to  be  lessened  by  substituting  Esar- 
haddon  for  Nabopolassar,  but  rather,  thereby,  seem  to 
be  increased. 

A  substitution  of  the  name  of  Assurbanipal,  the  son 
and  successor  of  Esar-haddon,  who  fought  success- 
Assurbani-  ^^^^^Y  against  the  Medes,  and  in  whose  later 
?SiiViredc?n-    Y^^^^    the    Kimmerian    (Manda)    greatly 
ditons.  wasted   and   harassed   the  borders   of   the 

empire,  may  give  more  satisfactory  results.*  To  this 
end  we  may,  without  violence  to  the  inscription,  thus 

♦See  Rogers's  History  of  Assyria^  vol.  ii,  pp.  258.  277, 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        S3 

read  and  interpret  it.  After  the  defeat  and  death  of 
his  rebelHous  brother,  there  appears  the  name  of  Kan- 
dalanu*  in  Ptolemy's  list  as  king  of  Babylon,  who 
doubtless  had  the  usual  jurisdiction  of  the  southern 
province  of  Accad  and  Sumer.  As  a  helper,  and  in 
his  semi-independence,  designated  by  Merodach  as 
ally,  he  was  bidden  to  march  to  the  assistance  of  his 
suzerain  in  the  sudden  emergency  and  peril  occasioned 
by  the  bold  and  unexpected  inroad  of  the  First  Medi- 
confederated  northern  tribes  under  the  an  invasion, 
leadership  of  the  Median  Phraortes.  This  afforded 
opportunity  for  the  usual  insubordination  of  the  south- 
ern cities  and  population,  of  which  they  seemed  largely 
to  have  availed  themselves,  refusing  to  march  with  the 
viceroy  of  Babylon  against  the  Umman-Manda  under 
their  Median  leader,  thus  throwing  their  influence 
against  the  empire.  With  the  forces  at  his  command, 
the  Assyrian  king  marched  against  the  invaders,  and 
in  a  fiercely  contested  battle  overwhelmingly  defeated 
them,  and  cut  to  pieces  their  army,  their  Medes  de- 
king  Phraortes  being  among  the  slain. 
Subdued  and  dejected  by  their  great  loss,  the  invaders 
under  Cyaxeres,  the  son  of  Phraortes,  were  driven  out 
of  Assyria,  the  ''Great  King"  returning  in  triumph  to 
Nineveh,  his  helper  and  ally,  the  viceroy  of  Babylon, 
Accad  and  Sumer,  returning  to  wreak  his  Kandaianu 
vengeance  upon  his  recalcitrant  subjects,  ^ad^and^su- 
"Above,  below,  right  and  left,  like  a  flood  he  "'^''- 

*The  identification  of  Kandalanu  with  Assurbanipal  is  not  satisfactory  to 
Oppert,  Sayce  and  Hommel,  and  may  therefore  be  disregarded.  (See  Rogers's 
History  of  Assyria^  vol.  ii,  p.  397.) 


54        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

overwhelmed  them.  He  avenged  [loyal]  Babylon.  [For 
the  rest]  He  multiplied  corpses  [the  slain]."  He  ad- 
ministered punishment  after  the  most  cruel  fashion  of 
his  master,  of  a  most  cruel  and  sanguinary  age.  Mean- 
while the  Manda  people,  under  their  fearless  king, 
were  pressing  along  the  northern  borders  of  the  em- 
pire, looting  and  ruining  the  temples  of  the  gods  of 
Assyria  and  the  cities  on  the  borders  of  the  land  of 
Accad.  Their  revolt  against  the  king  of  Accad,  and 
their  reluctance  or  refusal  to  march  against  them  in 
their  late  invasion,  did  not  constitute  them  his  allies, 
or  secure  them  favor.  He  understood  their  motive 
was  not  to  help  his  people,  but  that  they  might  gain 

The  Manda  their    independence.     "Their    cities,    there- 
raid  the  bor- 
der cities.        fore,  he  destroyed,  and  of  their  sanctuaries 

[walls]  he  left  not  any — He  laid  waste  their  cities." 
So  also  the  king  of  Babylon  'Uike  a  flood  carried 
beyond  bounds  the  work  of  Merodach.  He  put  not 
his  hands  to  the  commands  of  any  other  gods.  He 
prospered,  and  lay  not  down  on  the  bed  of  idleness 
and  repose."    (Light  from  the  East,  p.  214.) 

But  this  victory  and  the  pacification  secured  by  vio- 
lence did  not  end  the  misfortunes  of  the  Assyrian. 
n,,o^o.«o   Neither  Manda  nor  Mede  abandoned  their 

v-ya.  A  Or  r  c  s 

second^fnva^  purpose  of  entering  what  was  to  them,  as 
^^**""  was  Canaan  to  the  Israelites,  the  land  of 

promise ;  and  as  appears  from  the  inscriptions  as  thus 
viewed,  they  continued  to  harass  the  imperial  borders, 
and  lay  waste  its  cities  and  temples.  The  ready  suc- 
cess which  the  roving  bands  obtained  in  their  raids 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        55 

both  north  and  south  tended  to  lessen  their  awe  of  the 
great  empire,  and  emboldened  them  for  another  attempt 
at  its  conquest.  In  the  interval  between  his  defeat  and 
a  second  and  more  determined  effort,  Cyaxeres,  the 
Ahasuerus  of  Daniel,  the  son  and  successor  of 
Phraortes,  was  carefully  consolidating  his  people  and 
establishing  over  them  a  government  more  like  those 
of  the  nations  with  which  they  were  now  in  contact,  and 
organizing  under  thorough  discipline  an  army  well 
skilled  in  the  warlike  art,  as  then  known,  sufficient  in 
its  training,  valor  and  numbers  to  be  able  to  compete 
on  the  field  for  victory  with  the  great  armies  of  Nine- 
veh or  Babylon. 

Meantime  Assurbanipal  had  passed  away.  Kanda- 
lanu  had  also  disappeared.  Assur-etil-ilani,  a  son  of 
Assurbanipal,  had  just  ascended  the  Assyr-  . 
ian  throne.  Another  ruler,  Nabopolassar  and'^Ba^yk)" 
by  name,  was  in  place  at  Babylon,  a  vassal  °^*°  ^^^^^' 
monarch  holding  his  service  and  allegiance  due  to  the 
"Great  King,"  but  evidently  restive  under  the  yoke, 
and  ready  to  avail  himself  of  any  opportunity  that 
might  offer  to  weaken  or  destroy  its  hold  upon  him  or 
his  subjects. 

The  preparation  of  the  Median  king  having  been 
completed,  a  change  of  monarchs  favored  his  object, 
and  a  vast  host  of  confederated  tribes  or     „  ,        , 

Medes  and 

clans    was    set    in    motion,    swept    down  ^ege^toNuJ 
through  the  mountain  passes  on  their  way  ^ 
toward  the  capital,  devastating  the  land,  laying  waste 
the  cities,  despoiling  and  destroying  the  temples,  and 


56        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

with  resistless  fury  reached  the  great  city,  and  entered 
upon  its  siege. 

The  Assyrian  king  was  now  involved  in  great  diffi- 
culties. Revolt  was  in  the  purpose  and  disposition 
of  his  subjects,  if  not  everywhere  actually  existent. 
His  most  powerful  subordinate,  he  of  Babylon, 
could  not  be  relied  upon  to  assist  him  heartily  in 
his  hour  of  necessity,  and  destruction  seemed  inevi- 
table. 

At  this  critical  juncture  a  counter  inroad  of  the 
Scyths,  a  people  fresh  from  the  farther  north,  rushed 
„.         .    ,  down  into  Media,  and  the  Mede  was  com- 

Ol6g6  rfllS6(l 

FnvasSm^'o^  pelled  hastily  to  abandon  the  siege,  and 
Media.  return  with  all  speed  to  save  his  own  king- 

dom. Foiled  in  his  attempt  upon  Nineveh  by  this 
irruption  of  the  terrible  Scythians  (Sakean  Scyths), 
on  his  arrival  in  Media  he  met  with  disaster,  was 
defeated  in  battle,  and  compelled  to  submit  himself 
and  his  country  for  several  years  to  the  destructive 
rule  of  these  Manda  people,  a  later  evolution  from 
Media  con-  the  northern  wilds  than  the  "widespread 

quered     by 

Scyths.  people   of   the   Manda"   who   had    fought 

under  his  banners.  So  opportunely  did  this  relief 
come  that  it  has  been  suggested  that  the  Assyrian 
king  may  have  invited  these  barbarians  to  descend 
upon  Media.  In  any  case,  whether  it  was  the  result 
of  a  deliberate  plan  for  his  relief,  or  was  the  spon- 
taneous movement  of  a  nomadic  people  seeking  better 
lands  and  more  genial  clime,  it  is  certain  that  their 
sudden  and,  to  the  Medes,  unexpected  advent  saved 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        57 

the  empire  from  present  ruin,  and  for  several  years 
held  the  Medes  in  subordination. 

During  this  time  of  the  Scythian  (Mandean)  dom- 
ination of  Media,  the  Assyrian  kings  retained,  at  least 
nominally,  their  sovereignty;  but  their  new  ^^^  ^^^^ 
helpers,  or  "allies"  (with  their  king  '^Ar-  i'^,{/^%^^ 
bak,"  if  Hommel  is  right),  "did  little  but  i'^ruption. 
plunder  and  ravage  in  every  direction,"  ruining  all  the 
temples  of  his  gods,  and  laying  waste  his  cities.  In 
this  view  the  ruin  of  the  Assyrian  cities,  among  which 
at  that  time  Haran  would  be  found,  was  accomplished 
through  a  series  of  years  extending  to  a  time  perhaps 
earlier  than  the  peace  of  Alyattes;  and  there  is  not 
much  probability,  and  no  certainty,  in  the  date  B.  C. 
612,  as  fixed  by  the  fifty-four  years  of  desolation.  For 
a  part  of  the  five  years  prior  to  the  fall  of  gcy^hs'  aiu- 
Nineveh,  in  the  enfeebled  condition  of  the  *"'^^' 
empire,  it,  with  many  other  cities,  was  doubtless  held 
by  the  Scythian  Manda,  but  later  came  under  the  yoke 
of  the  Medes,  who  in  the  division  of  the  Assyrian 
assets  seem  to  have  retained  Assyria  proper,  and  north- 
ern Mesopotamia  on  a  line  which  Nabonidos  recog- 
nized as  including  Haran. 

The  change  from  Assur-etil-ilani  to  the  rule  of  Sin- 
sarra-iskun,  which  took  place  during  the  Scythian 
domination,   seems   not  to  have   improved      Sin-sarra- 

1  •  •  1        <  1        T»  «■     1         1      1     iskun  last 

the   Situation;   and   when   the   Medes   had    Assyrian 

king.    Nine- 
regained  their  ascendency,  and  had  found   veii  taken. 

Nabonidos  readily  co-operating  in  their  plans,  their 

combined  forces  advanced  into  Assyria,  took  posses- 


58        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

sion  of  its  cities  and  lands  outside  of  Nineveh,  and 
after  a  siege  of  uncertain  duration,  the  city  fell  into 
their  hands,  and  the  Assyrian  empire  was  dismem- 
bered, and  ceased  to  exist. 

The  northern  cities,  which  under  the  later  kings  of 
Assyria  had  been  seized  and  held  by  the  Scythian 
Manda,  continued  to  be  occupied  by  them  when  the 
Medes  regained  the  mastery,  and  was  still  in  their 
hands,  as  subjects  of  the  Median  empire,  when  the 
Persian  revolt  occurred. 

In  his  effort  to  suppress  the  revolt  of  the  Persians 

(Parsuans)  the  Median  king  had  evidently  summoned 

Medes  and  to  his  assistance  (mobilized)  the  entire  force 

Manda  join 

Cyrus.  of  Manda  and  Medes  available  within  his 

dominions.  This  necessarily  led  to  the  evacuation  of 
the  cities,  especially  of  those  which  were  not  likely  to 
be  attacked  by  the  enemy,  which  was  certainly  the  case 
in  relation  to  the  Persians,  who  in  the  contest  with 
Media  would  be  far  to  the  eastward  of  Haran.  This 
resulted  in  the  gathering  together  of  a  vast  multitude, 
among  whom  there  was  no  common  interest  and  agglu- 
tination. The  result  was,  therefore,  vastly  different 
from  what  the  King  Astyages  (Istuvegu),  justly  de- 
nominated "king  of  the  Manda — heterogeneous  hordes 
— expected.  Instead  of  a  decisive  victory  he  met  with 
a  disastrous  defeat,  and  the  entire  mass  after  the  defeat 
seems  at  once  to  have  adhered  to  the  fortunes  of  the 
victorious  Cyrus,  by  whom  they  were  speedily  led  to 
fresh  fields  of  plunder  and  pillage.  Thus  they  were 
abundantly  compensated  for  the  loss  sustained  by  their 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        59 

evacuation  of  cities  long  since  despoiled,  and  now  for  a 
time  left  to  their  own  fate,  while  they  marched  under 
new  auspices  to  newer  and  richer  conquests.  The  rest- 
less ambition  of  Cyrus,  indeed,  gave  them  ample  em- 
ployment, far  away  from  the  cities  thus  left  unde- 
fended. 

At  this  time  Nabonidos  had  not  usurped  the  throne, 
and  of  this  defenseless  condition  of  the  cities  along 
the  northern  border  it  was  possible  that  he  Nabonidos 
misfht  have  remained  in  igfnorance.     Until   ran,  repairs 

^^  °  ,  ,  the    temple, 

he  had  taken  into  his  hands  the  kingship  of  B-  c  555. 
Babylon  he  could,  of  course,  do  nothing,  nor  could 
the  knowledge  be  of  any  advantage  to  a  mere  subject. 
If  known  to  his  immediate  predecessors,  no  use  of  the 
knowledge  was  made,  since  they  ''engaged  in  no  war- 
like expeditions."  In  the  third  year  after  this  evacua- 
tion the  gods  (priests)  saw  their  opportunity  in  the  ac- 
cession of  an  active  and  adventurous  prince,  his  first 
year  being  contemporaneous  with  this  third  year  after 
the  "march  away"  of  Cyrus  and  the  Manda.  In  this 
third  year  of  the  cities'  defenselessness,  the  first  year 
of  his  reign,  the  true  situation  was  revealed  to  Nabo- 
nidos, and  the  information  coming  to  him  when  the 
forces  of  Cyrus  were  at  a  safe  distance  and  otherwise 
employed  gave  him  the  opportunity  to  possess  himself 
of  Haran,  and  restore  to  its  former  magnificence  the 
favorite  abode  of  the  great  Sin.  In  haste,  therefore,  he 
recalled  from  Syria  and  places  adjacent  to  Haran 
forces  sufficient  to  seize  and  hold  the  city,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  execute  the  order  of  the  king  of  the  gods. 


60        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

That  such  an  act  of  unprovoked  aggression  led  to  the 
subsequent  invasion  of  Babylonia  on  the  return  of 
Cyrus  is  not  known,  but  may  naturally  be  supposed  not 
to  have  been  passed  over  in  silence,  nor  without  an 
effort  to  avenge  the  insulted  dignity  of  the  "Great 
King." 

Thus  we  may,  it  is  hoped,  arrive  at  a  consistent  inter- 
pretation of  this  inscription,  but  do  not  therein  find 
any  absolutely  positive  datum  for  fixing  the  year  of  the 
fall  of  Nineveh.     (See  also  note  to  page  32.) 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        61 


nL  The  Persons  and  Other  Matters  Pertaining 
to  the  Taking  of  Babylon  and  the  Extinc- 
tion of  the  Babylono-Chaldean  Empire 

As  to  the  persons  and  other  matters  pertaining  to 
and  concerned  in  the  taking  of  Babylon,  it  is  attested 
by  the  "Annalistic  Tablet  of  Cyrus"  that     Gobryas 

takes   Baby- 
Cyrus  was  not  himself  present,  nor  at  the   ion  in  the  ab- 
•^  .        sence  of  Cy- 

head  of  the  victorious  army  when  the  city  r'ls- 
was  taken  (p.  502).  This  honor  fell  to  the  lot  of 
Gobryas  (Ugbaru),  the  governor  of  the  country  of 
Kurdistan,  described  by  Schrader  as  a  "Babylono- 
Median  race"  (vol.  ii,  p.  229).  According  to  Daniel 
and  Josephus,  "Darius  the  Median"  took  or  received 
the  kingdom;  rather,  was  made  "king  of  the  Chal- 
deans," appointed  to  that  office.  Josephus  further  in- 
forms us  that  Darius  had  another  name  among  the 
Greeks.  The  story  of  the  taking  of  Babylon  as  found 
in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  is  less  in  detail  than  are 
the  accounts  current  with  the  later  secular  historians, 
but  is  somewhat  supplemental  to  the  brev-      Cuneiform 

story  supple- 

ity  of  Daniel.  In  neither  the  cuneiform  nor  ments  Daniel, 
the  Biblical  narrative  are  there  any  indications  of  a  se- 
vere struggle,  either  in  attack  or  resistance,  when  the 
actual  entry  into  the  city  was  gained.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  inscriptions  expressly  say  that  "without  fight- 
ing and  battle  (Merodach)  caused  him  to  enter  into 


62        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Babylon,  his  city  of  Babylon  he  spared ;  all  the  men  of 
Babylon,  all  of  them  [  ?]  and  the  whole  of  Sumer  and 
Accad,  the  nobles  and  the  high  priests,  bowed  them- 
selves beneath  him ;  they  kissed  his  feet ;  they  rejoiced 
at  his  sovereignty;  their  countenance  shone"  (p.  505). 
This,  however,  refers  perhaps  not  so  much  to  the  cap- 
ture of  the  city  as  to  the  time  when  subsequently  Cyrus 
himself  came,  four  months  after  it  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  his  commander,  Gobryas,  and  had  been  under 
his  government.  But  the  absence  of  fighting  when  the 
city  was  taken  by  Gobryas  is  also  claimed.  "On  the 
1 6th  day  of  Tammuz  [June],  Gobryas,  the  governor  of 
the  country  of  Kurdistan  (Gutium),  and  the  soldiers  of 
Cyrus  entered  Babylon  without  fighting"  (502).  It 
was  not  until  the  third  day  of  Marchesvan  (October) 
that  Cyrus  entered  Babylon.  Of  this  entry  he  says: 
''When  I  entered  Babylon  in  peace,  with  joy  and  glad- 
ness I  founded  the  seat  of  dominion  in  the  palace  of 
princes."  The  palace,  therefore,  was  without  its  king 
or  prince. 

With  this  description  of  the  taking  of  the  city  the 

Biblical  writers  are  in  entire  harmony.    Jeremiah  (li, 

Biblical  30-38)   writes  that:  "The  mighty  men  of 

monize  with   Babvlon  have  forborne  to  fight,  thev  have 

the  inscrip-  '  .      ' 

tions.  remained  in  their  hold ;  their  might  hath 

failed;   they   became   as   women;   they   have  burned 

her    dwelling    places;    her    bars    are    broken.       One 

post  shall  run  to  meet  another,  and  one  messenger  to 

meet  another,  to  show  the  king  of  Babylon  that  his 

city  is  taken  on  every  quarter;  and  that  the  passages 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        63 

are  stopped,  and  the  reeds  they  have  burned  with  fire, 
and  the  men  of  war  are  affrighted."  So,  too,  the  simple 
brief  record  of  Daniel  favors  still  more  strongly  the  in- 
scriptions. It  says  nothing  about  any  siege ;  it  does  not 
say  that  the  city  was  taken  by  night  or  by  day,  by 
stratagem  or  by  assault,  or  in  words  that  the  city  was 
taken  at  all;  only  inferentially  conveys  the  idea.  It 
simply  states  two  incidents  that  occurred  on  the  night 
of  the  day  in  which  he  had  interpreted  the  handwriting 
on  the  wall  for  Belshazzar,  evidently  the  second  ruler 
of  the  kingdom,  of  which  Daniel  as  a  reward  had  been 
proclaimed  "third  ruler."  "In  that  night  was  Belshaz- 
zar the  king  of  the  Chaldeans  slain.  And  Darius  the 
Median  took  the  kingdom,  being  about  threescore  and 
two  years  old"  (vs.  30,  31). 

There  is  nothing  in  the  inscriptions  that  is  at  va- 
riance with  these  words,  as  we  shall  further  endeavor  to 
show.  It  is  certain  that  Nabonidos,  king  of  Belshazzar 
Babylonia,  the  father  of  Belshazzar,  was  not  ^f  ?2e  kiS|' 
known  by  the  Persians  to  be  in  Babylon  ^°™* 
when  it  was  by  them  entered.  He  had  been  in  Sippara 
two  days  previously,  from  which,  when  it  was  taken, 
he  had  fled.  He  was  afterward  "captured  after  being 
bound  in  Babylon ;"  perhaps  captured  outside  of  Baby- 
lon, but  brought  and  delivered  in  Babylon  after  he  had 
been  bound  (502).  It  is  also  absolutely  certain  that 
Belshazzar,  who  had  been  the  acting  king,  was  neither 
in  the  palace  nor  in  Babylon  when  Cyrus  some  four 
months  later  entered  the  city.  It  is  now  absolutely  cer- 
tain that  Nabonidos  had  a  son  named  Belshazzar,  his 


64        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Schrader'8    firstborn,  of  whom  Schrader  writes :  "That 

opinion.  ^j^jg  firstborn  son  of  Nabonidos  occupied  a 
distinguished  position  next  to  the  king  during  his  hfe- 
time,  and  especially  at  the  fall  of  the  empire,  has  been 
recently  established  by  an  inscription  on  a  clay  tablet 
containing  the  'Annals  of  Nabonidos.'  ...  As  early  as 
the  seventh  year  the  crown  prince,  the  son  of  the  king, 
was  accompanying  the  army  in  north  Babylonia  along 
with  the  chief  men  of  the  empire.  .  .  .  Perhaps 
while  the  father  confronted  the  foe  in  the  open  field  the 
son  was  appointed  to  defend  the  capital.  On  the  cap- 
ture of  the  town  the  crown  prince  lost  his  life,  meeting 
with  a  more  honorable  end  .  .  .  than  his  father,  who 
fell  into  captivity"  (vol.  ii,  p.  132). 

Professor  Sayce  admits  that  "since  we  are  told  not 
only  of  the  fate  of  Nabonidos,  but  also  of  the  death  of 

Sayee's  fu-  ^^^^  wife,  it  seems  probable  that  Belshazzar 

tile  account.     ^^^   ^^^^     |-  j-|      ^^  ^^^  ^^^^^   ^^^^   q^^^^ 

entered  Babylon  he  had  already  disappeared  from  his- 
tory" [ ! !]  (526).  To  this  fact  the  Biblical  account 
bears  emphatic  and  distinct  corroboration,  both  as  to 
time  and  manner.  Neither  does  it  seem  possible  that  a 
theory  of  Biblical  contradictions  of  the  inscriptions  can 
be  sustained  or  established  by  such  inconsiderate  state- 
ments as  that  "the  Biblical  story  implies  Babylon  was 
taken  by  storm ;  at  all  events,  it  expressly  states  that 
*the  king  of  the  Chaldeans  was  slain.'  Nabonidos, 
the  Babylonian  king,  however,  was  not  slain,  and  Cy- 
rus entered  Babylon  in  peace"  (526).  The  truth  is 
that  Daniel  gives  no  description  at  all  as  to  the  taking 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        65 

of  Babylon,  nor  is  Jeremiah  necessarily  to  be  interpret- 
ed as  ''implying  that  Babylon  was  taken  by  storm." 
On  the  contrary,  he  expressly  says  that  the  Babylonians 
did  not  fight,  made  no  resistance,  and  where  there  is  no 
resistance  the  need  of  a  **storm"  does  not  clearly  ap- 
pear. Of  course,  there  was  great  confusion;  messen- 
gers from  every  direction  would  naturally  make  their 
hurried  way  toward  the  palace  with  the  news  of  the 
disaster ;  but  such  "posts"  would  not  have  been  needed 
if  a  general  assault  had  taken  place,  or  the  city  had 
been  otherwise  taken  than  by  the  silent  march  of  the 
hostile  forces  through  the  open  gates — opened  doubt- 
less by  collusion  and  conspiracy.  And  certainly  Daniel 
is  not  in  conflict  with  the  inscriptions,  nor  in  contradic- 
tion thereto.  His  first  statement  that  Belshazzar  was 
slain  contradicts  nothing  in  the  inscriptions,  but  since 
they  show  that  he  lived  they  certainly  render  confirma- 
tion to  the  statement  that  he  met  with  death,  and  as 
they  say  nothing  about  how  he  met  it,  they  are  not  in 
evidence  against  one  who  tells  the  time  and  manner 
of  his  death.  Daniel  does  not  say  that  the  ''Babylonian 
king,  Nahonidos,  was  slain."  He  simply  states  that 
"Belshazzar  the  king  of  the  Chaldeans"  was  slain,  a 
title  which  seems  not  to  have  been  given  to  Nahonidos, 
and  for  these  closing  years  seems  to  have  been  peculiar 
to  Belshazzar  and  his  immediate  successor,  Darius  the 
Median.  Daniel  distinctly  names  with  the  title,  that 
there  may  be  no  possibility  of  confusion  or  mistake, 
that  the  person  who  was  slain  was  Belshazzar,  now 
known  from  the  monuments  to  be  the  son  of  Naboni- 
5 


66        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

dos,  and  who  in  his  book  is  recognized  as  "king  of  the 
Chaldeans,"  and  whom  he  thus  entitles,  doubtless  on 
proper  authority,  and  in  consistency  with  the  monu- 
mental discoveries  and  the  indication  given  in  the  fact 
that  he  himself  had  been  made  third  ruler  in  the  king- 
dom, he  himself  giving  the  name  of  the  second  ruler, 
Belshazzar,  and  his  own  name  as  the  third,  the  monu- 
ments supplying  the  name  Nabonidos  as  the  chief  or 
first  ruler  of  the  kingdom.  No  reference  to  Belshazzar 
is  made  later  than  to  the  third  year  of  his  reign,  after 
which  reference  he  and  Gobryas,  as  well,  disappear 
simultaneously  from  history,  as  well  from  the  monu- 
ments as  from  Daniel  (viii,  i).  It  is,  however,  signifi- 
cant of  the  accuracy  of  Daniel  that  in  every  year  from 
the  seventh  to  the  seventeenth  year  of  which  there  is 
given  a  detailed  account  in  the  inscriptions  there  oc- 
curs the  statement,  or  its  equivalent,  that  ''The  king 
(Nabonidos)  was  in  Teva ;"  "The  king  in  the  month  of 
Nisan  [the  first  month  of  the  year]  did  not  go  to 
Babylon ;"  "The  king  did  not  go  to  Babylon  in  the 
month  of  Nisan"  (p.  500,  etc.).  There  is,  therefore, 
no  violence  done  by  the  inference  that  his  son  took  or 
was  acting  with  kingly  authority  in  his  stead. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  at  all  improbable  that  in  the  three 
years  immediately  preceding  its  fall  the  crown  prince, 
resident  in  Babylon,  was  made  king  of  the  Chaldeans, 
or  Babylon,  while  his  father  was  in  the  camp  or  for- 
tress above  Sippara,  where  it  is  certain  his  mother  was 
living,  his  wife  being  with  her  son  Belshazzar  in  Baby- 
lon (p.  500,  Dan.  v).    From  the  seventh  to  the  eleventh 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        67 

year  of  the  reign  of  Nabonidos  the  king's  son  is  named 
in  the  inscriptions  as  being  with  the  nobles  and  the 
army  "in  the  country  of  Accad,"  but  no  mention  of  him 
is  made  in  the  detail  of  the  seventeenth  or  last  year. 
It  is  certain  that  Nabonidos  was  in  Sippara  two  days 
before  Babylon  was  taken.  It  seems  to  have  been  not 
at  all  uncommon  for  oriental  kings,  especially  when  in 
warfare  and  at  the  head  of  their  army,  to  join  with 
themselves  the  eldest  son,  conferring  upon  him  the 
powers  and  title  of  king  in  the  government  of  the 
capital.  So,  therefore,  Nabonidos  may  have  appointed 
''king  of  the  Chaldeans,"  or  of  ''Babylon,"  this  son, 
whom  he  calls  "Bel-sar-user  my  eldest  son,  the  off- 
spring of  my  heart,"  asking  the  gods  also  "that  his 
glory  may  endure,"  he  meanwhile  reserving  to  him- 
self the  kingship  of  the  countries  outside  of  Chaldea 
and  confederate  with  him ;  thus  pursuing  the  same 
course  which,  according  to  Mr.  Pinches,  Cyrus  himself 
followed,  who,  "after  having  reigned  nine  years  as 
king  of  Babylon  and  countries,  abdicated  the  throne 
of  Babylon  in  favor  of  his  son  Cambyses,and  continued 
reigning  some  years  as  king  of  countries  only"  (R.  P., 
vol.  ii,  28-32 ;  V,  p.  147 ;  xi,  p.  89,  note) .  It  is  observable, 
too,  that  Daniel  does  not  tell  by  whom  Bel-     Not  known 

1  1    •  1       1  i        -r.        .  ^y    whom 

shazzar  was  slain,  whether  by  Persian  or  sJain. 
by  Chaldean.  That  there  must  have  been  a  second 
ruler,  acting  with  kingly  functions  in  Babylon  during 
the  long-continued  absence  of  the  first  ruler,  Naboni- 
dos, is  most  probable,  and  was  Indeed  a  necessity;  and 
judging  from  the  monuments,  none  more  capable  or 


68        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

eligible  or  more  trustworthy  could  have  been  found 
than  this  son ;  so  that  in  Daniel  thus  entitling  him, 
and  bringing  him  thus  into  his  story,  there  is  no  con- 
flict, but  an  additional  item  of  historic  information. 
Nor  is  there  the  slightest  conflict  or  improbability  in  the 
theory  that  a  conspiracy  may  have  been  formed  in  the 
palace  itself,  resulting  from  the  great  dissatisfaction  of 
priesthood  and  nobles  as  stated  by  Cyrus  himself,  and 
that  the  second  "ruler  of  the  kingdom,"  Belshazzar, 
under  the  ban  of  Daniel's  interpretation,  was  slain  in 
the  palace  in  a  sudden  outbreak  of  his  own  chief  officers 
and  retainers,  who  then  opened  the  wall  gates  and  ad- 
mitted Gobryas  and  his  forces  to  the  fortifications  and 
absolute  control  of  the  city. 

Neither  does  it  seem  exactly  accurate  to  say  that  it 
was  all  "peace,"  even  when  Cyrus  entered  Babylon, 

Dissension   if  the  inscriptions  are  rightly  rendered ;  "for 
and   restive-  r^.  ,tt       ,-,T»/rix 

ness  under  the  soldiers  of  Gutmm   (Kurdish  Medes) 

Cyrus      In  ' 

Babylon.  carefully  guarded  the  gates ;  no  special  fes- 
tivity was  observed,  dissensions  (mobs)  before  him 
had  to  be  allayed,  peace  in  the  city  did  Cyrus  establish ; 
peace  to  the  province  of  Babylon  did  Gobryas  pro- 
claim ;"  statements  unnecessary,  if  peace  had  already 
existed  from  June  to  October  {R.  P.  N.  S.,  vol.  v,  p. 
i6o,  etc.).  It  was  doubtless,  therefore,  as  hereinbefore 
suggested,  as  a  peace  offering  that  Nabonidos,  who  had 
been  taken  prisoner,  was  made  governor  of  Karmania 
{R.  P.  N.  S.,  vol.  i,  p.  i6i,  note),  to  conciliate  any 
who  might  against  priests  and  nobles  be  disposed  to 
revolt  in  his  interest.     For  the  offenses  by  reason  of 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        69 

which  he  lost  his  crown  were,  it  is  said,  committed 
against  the  gods,  i.  e.,  the  hierarchy  and  higher  classes ; 
so  that  for  reasons  which  are  suggested  by  certain  tra- 
ditions connected  with  family  ancestry  there  may  have 
been  a  widespread  discontent  among  the  Chaldean 
masses  at  the  turn  which  had  been  taken  in  the  de- 
thronement of  the  native  king,  the  establishment  of 
a  foreign  rule,  and  the  supremacy  of  alien  and  inferior 
races.  For  such,  in  their  estimation,  were  both  Medes 
and  Persians. 

As  related  to  this,  it  is  noted  in  Daniel  that  the 
mother  of  Belshazzar  in  her  counsel  to  her  son  laid 
special  stress  upon  the  expression,  "Nebu-      Thequeen- 

t      1  1        <•     ,        M         i  <•   1  mother     a 

chadnezzar,  thy  father,    and  was  careful  to  daughter  of 

•^  Nebuchad- 

repeat  and  emphasize  that  relationship.  In  nezzar. 
the  absence  of  positive  and  definite  information  in  the 
Biblical  and  cuneiform  accounts  as  to  whom  Naboni- 
dos  had  married,  we  are  necessarily  left  to  the  other 
sources  referred  to  as  to  the  actual  relationship  which 
would  lead  to  and  justify  this  careful  persistence  in 
designating  her  son  as  having  this  greatest  of  the 
Chaldean  kings  for  his  "father."  From  Herodotos  we 
have  the  name  of  a  queen  joined  with  Nabonidos,  bear- 
ing an  Egyptian  royal  name,  Nitocris,  then  in  use,  to 
whom  are  ascribed  extensive  works,  defensive  prepara- 
tions and  improvements  in  Babylon,  the  credit  of  which 
from  the  monuments  seem  to  belong  to  the  king.  As 
we  are  necessarily  left  to  supplement  the  notes  of  the 
historian  by  conjecture,  the  suggestion  of  Canon  Raw- 
linson  may  for  the  most  part  be  accepted,  that  "she  was 


70        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

the  daughter  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  born  of  an  Egyptian 
princess,  married*  to  .  .  .  Nabonidos,  who  ruled 
partly  in  her  right,  the  mother  of  Belshazzar,  the  queen 
who  came  into  the  banqueting  house  and  recommended 
him  to  send  for  Daniel"  (Anc.  Mon.,  iii,  p.  66,  note). 
There  is  no  improbability  in  this  idea,  and  that  she  was 
herself  of  this  noble  lineage,  and  greatly  valued  her- 
self and  her  son  because  of  this  illustrious  ancestry. 
Not  more  than  six  or  seven  years  had  elapsed  between 
the  death  of  Nebuchadnezzar  and  the  crowning  of  Na- 
bonidos (B.  C.  561-555),  who  himself  claims  Assyrian 
or  Babylonian  kings  as  his  "fathers"  {R.  P.  N.  S., 
vol.  V,  pp.  171-177).  In  the  seventh  year  of  his  reign 
(B.  C.  548)  his  son  Belshazzar  was  old  enough  to  be 
with  the  army.  Four  years  later  "he  was  a  wool 
merchant  in  Babylon"  (B.  C.  544,  H.  C.  M.,  p.  535, 
note).  "Belshazzar  showed  himself  to  the  world  to  be 
a  man  of  action.  Outside  of  Babylon  he  was  probably 
better  known  than  Nabonidos  himself"  (p.  527).  He 
must,  therefore,  when  slain  have  been  from  thirty  to 
forty  years  old,  born,  perhaps,  In  the  peaceful  times 
of  the  later  years  of  Nebuchadnezzarf  (B.  C.  578-538). 

♦"  Married  successively  to  Neriglissar  and  Nabonidos,"  is  Ra%%'linson's  idea. 
But  if  taken  at  the  death  of  Neriglissar  by  Nabonidos,  B,  C.  555,  the  son  born  to 
him  thereafter  could  not  have  been  over  sixteen  years  old  at  the  taking  of  Baby- 
lon. B.  C.  538,  nor  over  seven  in  548,  when  he  was  with  the  army  in  north  Baby- 
lonia; and  yet  Nabonidos  claims  him  "as  the  offspring  of  my  heart,"  his  own  son. 

t  Indeed  all  the  indications  as  to  the  time  when  the  "Great  King"  had  the  last 
recorded  dream  (chapter  iv)  point  to  the  later  years  of  his  reign.  His  preat  im- 
provements in  Babylon  had  evidently  been  completed.  He  was  apparently  at 
peace  with  all  nations,  and  his  glory  had  culminated.  If  now  Belshazzar  was,  say, 
forty  years  old  when  slain  (538-40— B.  C,  578)  he  would  have  lived  si.\teen  years 
during  the  reign  of  his  grandfather,  Nebuchadnezzar.  He  may.  therefore,  have 
been  seven  or  eight  years  old  when  Daniel  gave  the  interpretation.  At  that  age  he 
gould  have  such  knowledge  as  to  have  enabled  him  to  truthfully  say  :  "  I  have 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        71 

At  this  ripe  age,  with  the  experience  and  reputation 
gained  by  years  of  service  and  a  governorship  of  some 
years,  his  trading  and  intimate  minghng  with  the 
soldiery  and  common  people  giving  him  acquaintance 
and  influence  among  the  masses,  the  defense  of  Baby- 
lon might  well  be  left  with  this  son,  "who  is  proved 
by  the  inscriptions  to  have  been  associated  with  the 
kingdom,  and  who  was  aided  by  the  maturer  counsels 
of  the  queen-mother;"  not  the  mother  of  Nabonidos, 
who  was  dead,  but  of  Belshazzar  (Smith,  Anc.  Hist, 
of  the  East,  p.  301 ;  R.  P.,  vol.  v,  p.  147,  19-31). 

In  the  instance  cited  by  Daniel  the  purpose  of  the 
queen  in  her  use  of  the  term  "father"  was  to  emphasize 
his  relationship  to  the  "Great  King,"  her  father,  as  a 
precedent  for  calling  the  same  skilled  interpreter  who 
had  unraveled  the  mysterious  visions  of  his  grand- 
father. For  neither  here  nor  in  the  case  where  his 
father,  Nabonidos,  claims  Assyrian  or  Babylonian 
kings  as  "his  fathers"  is  the  term  to  be  construed 
strictly,  but  rather  as  "ancestors,"  more  or  less  remote. 
This  relationship,  also,  satisfactorily  accounts  for  what 
otherwise  seems  altogether  inexplicable,  namely,  the 
extraordinary  honors  after  her  death  heaped  upon  her 
memory,  in  the  elaborate  funeral  service  conducted  by 
no  less  a  personage  than  Cambyses,  the  son  of  Cyrus, 

heard  of  thee,  that  thou  canst  make  interpretations,  and  dissolve  doubts  "  (v.  i6). 
Thus  Daniel  may  be  fully  justified  in  his  responsive  charge,  that:  "Thou,  his 
[grandlson,  O  Belshazzar,  hast  not  humbled  thine  heart,  though  thou  knowest  all 
this,"  to  wit,  the  dream,  the  interpretation,  the  fulfillment  or  verification  of  the  in- 
terpretation, the  latter,  perhaps,  still  fresh  in  his  memory,  as  among  the  last  of  the 
memorable  events  or  experiences  of  his  illustrious  ancestor,  while  in  this  second 
ruler's  approach  to  manhood. 


72         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

in  which  the  offerings  were  ten  times  such  as  were 
customary  on  such  occasions,  notwithstanding  the 
humihating  fact  that  she  was  the  wife  of  a  defeated  and 
dethroned  monarch.  It  also  accounts  for  the  universal 
mourning  and  lamentation  in  Accad  and  Sumer,  once 
the  subjects  of  her  father,  as  also  for  the  service  of  a 
Semitic*  priest  in  an  Elamite  robe ;  and  it  removes  all 
improbability  from  the  statements  of  Daniel  which  in- 
dicate the  high  standing  and  veneration  belonging  to 
the  queen-mother  {H.  C.  M.,  pp.  502,  503).  There  was 
also  great  mourning  and  lamentation  in  the  country  of 
Accad,  and  by  the  king's  son,  i.  e.,  Belshazzar,  and  his 
soldiers  for  three  days,  when  on  the  fifth  day  of  the 
month  Nisan,  in  the  ninth  year  of  his  reign,  the  mother 
of  Nabonidos  died  in  the  camp  fortress  on  the  Eu- 
phrates above  Sippara.  For  it  was  certainly  through 
his  mother  that  he  was  of  royal  race,  as  he  himself  thus 
testifies :  "I  am  Nabonidos,  the  Great  King,  .  .  .  whom 

♦"Elamite,"  and  therefore  Biblically  Semitic.  Even  admitting  that  as  early  as 
the  time  of  Abraham,  the  names  of  the  kings  of  Elam  philologically  indicated  a 
different  ethnic  origin,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  aboriginal  subjects  were  of  the 
same  race  as  their  rulers.  It  is  rather  suggestive  that  even  at  so  early  an  age  as 
in  the  time  of  Cyrus,  the  invasion  of  a  hardier  race,  or  races,  from  the  north  had 
successfully  established  themselves  and  Aryan  rule  over  the  land,  but  without  much 
change  in  their  religion  or  other  characteristics.  Because  Anglo-Saxon  or  Nor- 
man kings  bore  rule  in  Britain,  we  are  not,  therefore,  warranted  in  concluding  that 
the  name  Britain  is  either  Saxon  or  French,  or  that  the  inhabitants  thereof  were 
of  the  same  ethnic  origin  as  their  rulers.  The  aborigines  of  Ireland  and  America 
forbid  !  It  was,  perhaps,  because  of  this  ethnic  difference,  and  of  the  persistent 
efforts  ot  these  Aiyan  kings  to  come  down  from  the  high  ground  which  they  had 
conquered,  and  to  subjugate  the  Semites  in  the  much-coveted  paradisaic  lands  be- 
tween and  along  the  great  rivers,  that  an  almost  perpetual  warfare  was  kept  up 
between  the  Semitic  Assyrians,  or  Babylonians,  and  the  Aryan  kings  of  Elam. 
This  racial  antagonism  may,  perhaps,  also  account  for  the  use  of  the  "  Elamite 
robe,"  as  distinguishing  this  priest  of  the  Semitic  Nebo  from  the  Ar>'an  Cambyses, 
who  either  himself,  or  by  the  instrumentality  of  another  priest,  was  making  un- 
usually large  "  freewill  offerings  "  to  the  same  god.    (H.  C.  and  M.,  p.  503.) 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        73 

Sin  and  Nergal  in  the  womb  of  my  mother  have  des- 
tined to  the  destiny  of  sovereignty,  the  son  of  Nebo- 
balad-su-igbi,  the  wise  prince,  the  worshipper  of  the 
great  gods  am  I"  (R.  P,  N,  S.,  vol.  v,  pp.  160-168).  It 
would  therefore  seem  that  Nabonidos  was  himself  of 
a  royal  race,  a  descendant  of  Assurbanipal,  the  great- 
est king  of  the  last  successful  dynasty,  and  that  in  right 
of  his  wife,  Nitocris,  daughter  of  Nebuchadnezzar, 
he  came  to  the  throne  as  an  avenger  of  the  wrong  done 
in  the  murder  of  the  legitimate  ruler  of  the  race  of 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  the  usurpation  of  the  throne  by 
Neriglissar  (Nergal-Sharezer).  There  were  thus  com- 
bined the  fortunes  and  prestige  of  the  most  renowned 
of  the  kings  of  the  two  dynasties,  with  which  were 
linked  the  proudest  memories  still  leaving  their  impress 
upon  the  heart  of  the  existent  peoples,  who  manifested 
their  attachment  in  the  mourning,  the  lamentations,  the 
honors  paid  first  to  the  mother,  and  afterward  still  more 
lavishly  to  the  wife*  of  the  dethroned  Nabonidos,  in 
which  an  alien  conqueror  of  an  alien  race  was  con- 
spicuously and  heartily  joining. 

*  "Son  "  is  a  recently  suggested  reading.  But  of  what  king?  Certainly  not  of 
Cyrus,  nor  of  Belshazzar.  Nor  could  it  be  Belshazzar,  the  son  of  Nabonidos,  as 
the  death  of  this  person,  the  object  of  so  much  grief,  whosoever  it  may  have  been, 
must  have  occurred  in  February,  B.  C.  537,  since  the  mourning  and  funeral  cere- 
monies lasted  from  27th  Adar  (February)  to  3d  Nisan  (March).  If  it  could  be 
proved  that  the  funeral  was  that  of  Belshazzar,  that  would,  of  course, be  a  flat  con- 
tradiction of  Daniel,  since  in  his  story  Belshazzar  was  slain  as  early  as  Tammuz 
(June),  B,  C.  538.  But  no  such  proof  as  yet  has  been  found,  and  no  good  reason 
has  been  given,  nor  is  it  at  all  probable  that  a  satisfactory  account  can  ever  be 
rendered,  as  to  why  such  exceptionally  distinguished  obsequies  should  attend  the 
funeral  of  the  slain  "second"  or  subordinate  "ruler"  of  the  defunct  Babylono* 
Chaldean  kingdom.    (Compare  page  77). 


74        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 


IV.  Identification  of  Darius  the  Median 

There  remains  now  the  identification  of  the  person 
named  "Darius  the  Median,"  who  figures  in  both 
Daniel  and  Josephus,  as  ruler  with  the  first,  and  as 
conqueror  of  Babylon,  or  the  kingdom  of  the  Chal- 
deans, with  the  latter  writer.  Taking  the  data  supplied 
by  the  inscriptions,  the  secular  historians,  the  Biblical 
books,  and  Josephus,  treating  all  with  fairness  and  due 
respect,  it  is  hoped  that  a  satisfactory  and  conclusive 
result  may  be  attained. 

It  may  be  well  to  emphasize  the  singular  agreement 

of  the  inscriptions  with  Daniel  and  Josephus  in  the 

„  statement  that  the  efovernorship,  or  absolute 

Harmony  ^  ^ 

jo?e^phuk  ruling  authority,  upon  the  capture  of  Baby- 
t?ons"asTo  ^on  was  held  or  exercised,  not  by  Cyrus,  but 
orshl'p'^o'f  by  the  leader  of  the  army,  by  whom,  in  the 
absence  of  Cyrus,  the  city  was  taken;  Cy- 
rus himself,  according  to  the  inscriptions,  not  being 
then  present,  nor  for  months  afterward.  These  facts 
precisely  accord  with  Daniel,  but  not  with  all  the  later 
secular  writers,  to  some  of  whom  this  absence  of 
Cyrus  was  apparently  unknown.  Herodotos  agrees 
with  the  inscriptions,  omitting,  however,  the  name  of 
the  commander  who  took  the  city  ;  but  Xenophon  states 
that  Cyrus  was  present,  and  that  after  giving  the  gen- 
eral orders  he  said :  "Come,  then,  take  your  arms,  and 
with  the  help  of  the  gods  I  will  lead  you."    Yet  in  the 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        75 

actual  capture  as  described  by  Xenophon,  Gobryas,  not 
Cyrus,  is  the  conspicuous  figure  (cf.  Her.,  i,  par.  191, 
with  Cyrop.,  bk.  vii,  ch.  5,  §§  15-33)-''^  Such  agree- 
ments tend  to  increase  confidence  in  the  story  of 
Herodotos  and  of  Daniel,  and  render  it  more  unlikely 
that  all  the  details  given  by  the  former  as  to  the  siege 
are  altogether  fictions.  This  absence  of  Cyrus  from  the 
capture  and  government  of  Babylon  from  June  to  Oc- 
tober or  November  well  accounts  for  the  fact  which 
appears  in  Daniel  that  the  issue  of  the  proclamation  for 
the  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem  in  the  first  year  of  Cyrus 
and  Darius  was  unknown  to  Daniel  until  revealed  to 
him  by  the  angel  (ix,  23),  the  legitimate  inference 
being  that  it  was  issued  at  the  urgent  request  or  in- 
stance of  Jews  who  had  been  with  him  during  the 
invasion,  and  had  secured  it  during  the  interim  between 
the  capture  and  his  entry  into  the  city  in  Marchesvan; 
another  incidental  indication  that  this  book  was  written 
by  Daniel  in  his  own  day,  and  not  at  a  time  when  it 
would  have  taken  its  coloring  from  the  current  secular 
accounts.    With  Cyrus  Daniel  seems  to  have  had  little 

*  Neither  Herodotos  nor  the  inscriptions  give  the  time  of  the  day  when  the 
attack  and  conquest  took  place.  Xenophon,  however,  emphatically  states  that 
the  attack  had  been  timed  for  a  day  on  which  Cyrus  had  heard  that  "  there  was  a 
festival  in  Babylon,  in  which  all  the  Babylonians  drank  and  reveled  the  whole 
night.''  On  that  day,  "as  soon  as  it  was  dark,"  Cyrus  opened  the  trenches, 
draining  the  river  into  the  lake.  The  Persians  under  Gobryas  then  entered  by 
the  river  bed,  forced  their  way  into  the  palace,  nut  the  king  standing  with  his 
sword  drawn,  mastered  him,  killing  also  those  with  him.  When  the  day  came  they 
that  held  the  towers  saw  that  the  place  was  taken,  the  king  dead,  and  therefore 
gave  up  the  towers.  All  this  accords  with  Daniel,  who  supplies  the  name  omitted 
by  Xenophon,  Belshazzar,  the  king's  son— the  names  of  father  and  son  being  so 
coupled  together  in  an  inscription  as  to  imply  co-sovereignty  (Rawlinson,  Anc, 
Mon.,  iii,  p.  70,  note,  and  73,  note). 


76        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

to  do,  his  only  reference  to  him  in  his  book  being 
(i,  2i)  that  "he  continued"  (in  his  relation  to  the  Chal- 
dean kingdom?)  "even  mito  the  first  year  of  King 
Cyrus"*  (and  vi,  28),  that  "he  prospered  in  the  reign 
of  Darius  and  in  the  reign  of  Cyrus  the  Persian,"! 
and  that  in  the  third  year  of  his  reign  he  had  "a 
vision"  (x,  i).  This  agreement  with  the  inscriptions 
and  with  the  best  accredited  secular  historians  may, 
therefore,  be  set  to  the  credit  of  the  Hebrew  writers. 

It  is  necessary  at  the  outset  of  this  investigation  to 
ascertain  the  exact  relation  of  Darius  the  Median  to 

Darius  and  ^yrus  and  the  empire  of  the  Medes  and 
cXn't^erapo'l  Persians,  as  that  is  indicated  in  Daniel.  It 
raneousiy.  sgenis,  for  the  most  part,  to  have  been  over- 
looked, heretofore,  that  this  relation  is,  indeed,  very 
clearly  indicated  therein,  and  that  Daniel  does  not  claim 
that  the  Mede  was  either  the  predecessor  or  the  suc- 
cessor of  Cyrus.  Yet  many  of  the  objections  to  the 
validity  of  this  book  of  Daniel  seem  to  depend  for 
their  validity  upon  the  assumption  that  there  must 
have  existed  one  or  the  other  of  these  relations.  On 
the  contrary,  Darius  is  always  represented  as  "king 
Darius  over    ^^  ^^^^  Chaldeans,"  that  is,  of  the  realm  of 

chaidea.  ^j^^  Chaldeans,  which  "he  had  received,  or 
taken,"  evidently  from  or  in  the  name  of  a  superior; 


*Or,  more  literally  and  consistently  with  the  context  (v.  19)  and  vi,  28 :  "So 
(i.  e..  And  such)  was  Daniel  during  the  first  year  of  King  Cyrus." 

tThat  is,  in  other  respects  this  Daniel  also  had  prosperity  during  the  reign  of 
Darius  and  of  Cyrus,  but  may  not  have  had,  suhsequent  to  the  first  year,  the  same 
close  relationship  to  Cyrus ;  and  in  this  qualified  statement  is  also  indicated  the 
contemporaneousness  of  the  two  reigns  of  Cyrus  and  Darius  (Gobryas). 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        77 

while  Cyrus  is  designated  as  the  Persian,  or  king  of 
Persia ;  the  general  laws  and  customs  under      Cyrus  over 

^  the    Persian 

which  Darius  acted,  and  by  which  he  was   empire. 

rigorously  bound,  being  those  of  the  general  govern- 
ment of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  and  of  which  Cyrus 
was  undoubtedly  ''the  Great  King."  Whatever  law  or 
decree  Darius  made  was  of  uniform  authority  in  every 
part  of  "the  kingdom  of  the  Chaldeans"  which  he  ad- 
ministered, but  not  beyond.  For  even  the  expression, 
"Then  Darius  wrote  unto  all  people,  nations,  and  lan- 
guages that  dwell  in  all  the  earth  [land],"  must  be 
understood,  with  the  limitation  "my  kingdom,"  in  the 
next  clause,  as  meaning  that  part  of  the  "earth,"  that 
IS,  the  land  covered  by  his  kingdom,  "the  kingdom  of 
the  Chaldeans,"  which  he  held  contemporaneously  with 
and  under  the  suzerainty  of  "Cyrus  the  Persian"  (vs. 
i  -25-31 ;  ix,  i).  That  they  were  thus  contemporaneous, 
the  one  the  ruler  of  a  kingdom  or  province  forming 
part  of  the  greater  kingdom  or  empire  over  which  the 
other  reigned,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  decree 
which  in  2  Chron.  xxvi,  21,  and  Ezra  i,  is  attributed  to 
the  first  year  of  Cyrus,  is  said  in  Daniel  to  have  been 
issued  in  the  first  year  of  Darius,  but  by  whom  issued 
or  by  what  authority  is  not  stated  in  Daniel,  so  that 
there  is  no  disagreement  or  contradiction  or  ambiguity 
in  the  several  statements  of  the  author  of  Chronicles, 
of  Ezra,  or  of  Daniel  ix,  I,  23,  who,  having  begun  his 
supplication  "in  the  first  year  of  Darius,"  is  told  by 
Gabriel  that  "at  the  beginning  of  thy  supplications  the 
commandment  came  forth,"  which  could  be  no  other 


78         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

than  the  proclamation  ''of  Cyrus  in  the  first  year  of 
his  reign,"  thus  indisputably  establishing  the  contempo- 
raneity of  Cyrus  the  ''Great  King"  the  suzerain,  and 
Darius,  the  king  of  the  Chaldeans,  a  fact  which, 
strangely  enough,  does  not  seem  heretofore  to  have 
been  generally  recognized.  This  subordination  of 
Darius  and  the  consequent  limitation  of  his  authority 
also  accounts  for  the  absence  of  any  application  to  him, 
Darius,  by  Daniel  in  furtherance  of  the  objects  contem- 
plated in  his  supplications,  since  a  proclamation  or 
decree  by  Darius  would  have  been  futile  and  ut- 
terly worthless,  if  not  by  its  assumption  to  have  been 
prejudicial. 

From  the  inscriptions  we  learn  that  the  first  governor 

of  Babylonia  under  Cyrus  was  at  the  time  of  the  cap- 

Gobryas    ^^''^^   °^  ^^^^   ^^^>'  governor   of   Kurdistan; 

laby lou^  ami  ^"*^   ^^^"^   ^^^^   ^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^  ^^  apparently 

Kurdistan,      y^^^^^^^  ^^  ^j^^  kingdom  of  the  Chaldeans, 

which  did  not  at  the  time  of  the  surrender  of  Naboni- 
dos  include  the  Median  province  of  Kurdistan,  it  would 
seem  that  he  was  transferred  from  that  conquered 
province  to  the  governorship  of  the  realm  wrested  from 
that  Chaldean  king  and  his  son  and  co-rex  Belshazzar. 
Taking  now  the  data  found  in  Daniel,  our  attention 
is  at  once  directed  to  the  statement  of  the  age  of 
Darius  not  I^'^^his  the  Median  at  the  transfer  of  Baby- 
Astyages.  ^^^  ^^  ^|^g  Medo-Persian  dominion  as  sixty- 
two  years,  that  is,  that  he  was  in  his  sixty-third  year. 
As  the  capture  by  Gobryas  was  in  B.  C.  538,  the  birth 
of  this  Darius  must  have  been  B.  C.  600,  or  ten  years 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        79 

later  than  the  treaty  between  Cyaxares  (Ahasuerus) 
I  and  Alyattes  of  Lydia,  at  which  time  Astyages 
(Istuvegu),  the  son  of  the  Median  king  Cyaxares  I 
(Hebrew  Ahasuerus),  was  either  married  or  espoused 
to  the  daughter  of  the  Lydian  king,  and  may  be  as- 
sumed to  have  been  about  twenty  years  old,  born,  say, 
B.  C.  630.  Taking  as  the  date  of  his  defeat  and  de- 
thronement B.  C.  558,  and  the  years  of  his  reign  as 
usually  given,  thirty-five,  and  we  have  as  the  date  of 
his  accession  to  the  throne,  and  the  probable  date  of  his 
father's  death,  B.  C.  593.  At  the  time  of  his  dethrone- 
ment he  would,  therefore,  be  seventy-two  years  old,  and 
if  living  at  the  fall  of  Babylon  would  be  ninety-two 
years  old,  an  age  which  would  itself  be  against  all 
probability  of  his  occupying  the  responsible  position 
named,  and  altogether  inconsistent  with  Daniel's  ac- 
count. The  theory  which  sees  in  Astyages  Darius  the 
Median  may,  therefore,  be  dismissed  as  failing  to  meet 
the  required  and  necessary  conditions. 

As  appears  clearly  from  the  cuneiform  inscriptions, 
the  city  was  taken  by  Gobryas  of  Kurdistan,  and  he 

also  was  immediately  made  its  governor;      Gobryas 

rules     L/iiJil- 
"he  took  the  kingdom."    This  authority  at  dea. 

first  seems  to  have  been  limited  to  the  city,  perhaps  on 
account  of  the  territory  outside  being  occupied  by  the 
forces  under  the  personal  command  of  Cyrus  himself; 
but  after  the  entry  of  Cyrus,  Marchesvan  3,  he  seems 
to  have  received  an  extension  of  his  authority,  cover- 
ing the  entire  province  of  Babylonia,  or  the  kingdom  of 
Chaldea.    So  from  Dan.  v,  31 ;  vi,  25,  2(i\  ix,  i,  we 


80        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Darius  the  ^^^^^  ^^at  "Darius  the  Median  took  the 
th?^Ch"a!-  kingdom  of  the  Chaldeans,"  was  made  or 
deans.  appointed   king.     That   the   province   was 

under  the  direction  and  control  of  Gobryas  as  governor 
is  clearly  stated  in  the  inscriptions.  *'On  the  i6th  day 
of  Tammuz  (June)  Gobryas,  the  governor  of  the 
country  of  Kurdistan  (Gutium)  [Kurdish  tribes,  or,  as 
before  shown,  Kurdish  Medes]  and  the  soldiers  of 
Cyrus  entered  Babylon  without  fighting.  .  .  .  The 
third  day  of  the  month  Marchesvan  Cyrus  entered 
Babylon.  .  .  .  Peace  to  all  the  province  of  Babylon 
did  Gobryas,  his  governor,  proclaim.  Governors  in 
Babylon  he  appointed.  From  the  month  Chisleu  to 
the  month  Adar  (November,  538,  to  February,  537) 
the  gods  of  the  country  of  Accad,  whom  Nabonidos 
had  transferred  to  Babylon,  returned  to  their  own 
cities.  The  eleventh  day  of  [the  subsequent]  Mar- 
chesvan (October,  537)  during  the  night  Gobryas  was 
on  the  bank  of  the  river.  .  .  .  The  wife*  of  the  king 
[Nabonidos,  the  mother  of  Belshazzar]  died.  From 
the  twenty-seventh  of  Adar  (February)  to  the  third 
day  of  Nisan  (March  or  April?)  there  was  lamenta- 
tion in  the  country  of  Accad"  (pp.  502,  503),  "mourn- 
ing for  the  mother  of  Belshazzar." 
Thus  it  appears  that  for  the  greater  part  of  a  year, 

♦  Read  recently  "  son  "  by  some.  But  the  reading  "  wife  "  accords  better  with 
the  context,  and  avoids  an  unnecessary  "  clash  "  with  the  clear  statement  of 
Daniel,  as  to  the  death  of  the  "  son."  She  was  living  the  day  of  the  night  when 
her  son  was  slain,  and  this  is  the  only  record  of  the  death  of  this  queenly  and  dis- 
tinguished woman.  The  funeral  ceremonies  were  in  B.  C.  537,  continuing  from 
February  27  to  March  3d.  (See  Chron.  Consp.^  note  f.  See  also  note  to  page  70. 
Ball  renders  it  "  king's  consort,"  Light  from  the  East,  p.  221.) 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        81 

at  least,  if  not  into  the  second  year,  Gobryas  was  act- 
ing: governor  of  the  kingdom  of  Chaldea,      Gobryas  in 

,     ,  .  1  r  .      ^-        the  monu- 

and  there  is  no  record  or  reference  in  the   ments.    Da- 
rius in  Dan- 
book  of  Daniel  to  Darius  the  Median  beyond   iei,  ruled  the 

y  e  ar  a  1 1  e  r 

what  is  termed  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  tiie  capture. 
The  fact  that  in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  he  is 
not  called  king,  as  Darius  the  Median  is  called, 
involves  no  contradiction  or  difficulty.  For  the  govern- 
ors of  Babylon  appointed  under  the  domination  of  As- 
syria, though  not  kings,  are  included  among  the 
kings  of  Babylon  in  Ptolemy's  Canon,  and  Gobryas,  as 
well  as  they,  exercised  all  the  authority  of  kings  over 
the  territory  ruled  by  them  severally.  Such  was  the 
authority  to  appoint  "governors  in  Babylon,"  which  the 
inscriptions  say  he  did  appoint,  the  number  according 
to  Daniel  being  one  hundred  and  twenty.  This  number 
sufficiently  differentiates  this  transaction  from  the  sub- 
sequent appointment  of  twenty  satraps,  and  the  division 
of  the  entire  empire  into  satrapies  under  and  by 
Darius  son  of  Hystaspes.  Neither  is  there  any  im- 
probability in  the  statement  that  Daniel  was  by  Darius 
appointed  the  first  of  the  three  presidents,  when  the 
history  of  this  peerless  Israelite  became  known  to  him, 
as  it  certainly  would  be,  nor  that  Daniel  should  retain 
his  reputation  and  influence  during  the  subsequent 
years  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus  the  Achsemenian.  Neither 
would  the  fact  that  in  the  inscriptions  the  name  given 
is  (Ugbaru)  Gobryas,  and  in  Daniel  and  Josephus  is 
Darius,  be  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  the  identification, 

as  below  may  be  made  more  fully  to  appear,  if  other 
6 


82         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

matters  indicate  that  these  names  designate  one  and 
the  same  person,  since  an  objection  arising  from  this 
diversity  has  been  anticipated  by  Josephus  in  the  state- 
ment that  Darius  had  another  name  among  the  Greeks. 
Besides  this,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  Darius  is  a 
proper  name,  or  is  other  than  a  title  of  royalty  or 
nobility,  preceding  another  and  distinguishing  name, 
as  in  the  only  instances  of  its  use,  namely,  Darius  the 
Median,  Darius  Hystaspes,  Darius  Ochus,  Darius 
Nothus,  and  Darius  Codomannus. 

That  Gobryas  was  a  Mede,  as  was  Darius,  seems  ap- 
parent from  the  fact  that  he  first  appears  as  governor 
of  Gutium,  or  Kurdistan,  in  which  were  included  the 
Madai,  or  Medes,  ''who,  in  fact,"  writes  Professor 
Sayce,  ''were  the  Kurdish  tribes  who  lived  eastward  of 
Assyria,  and  whose  territories  for  the  most  part  ex- 
tended as  far  as  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  whose  outposts 
extended  westward  to  the  Halys."  Nor  is  there  the 
least  improbability  in  the  statement  that  one  of  these 
people  should  be  at  the  head  of  this  victorious  army, 
when  it  is  true  that  the  same  nation  was  so  conspicuous 
in  forming  the  kingdom  which  superseded  the  latest 
Babylono-Semitic  empire  as  to  have  given  to  the  new 
dominion  In  all  secular  history  at  Its  beginning  the 
double  description,  "Medo-Perslan,"  a  form  unusual 
and  unique.  No  other  name.  Indeed,  seems  to  have  been 
known  for  It  In  Its  earliest  history  than  that  which 
imited  these  two  names  either  In  that  form  or  "Medes 
and  Persians ;"  and  we  may  emphasize  the  strangeness 
of  the  allegation  that  both  Biblical  writers  and  secular 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        83 

historians,  the  former  Hving  at  or  near  the  time,  and 
some  of  the  latter  not  many  years  after,  should  have 
substituted  for  *'Manda,"  or  "people  of  the  Manda," 
the  name  "Medes"  or  "Mede;"  and  the  improbability 
that  such  a  substitution  should  be  so  made  at  this  early 
date,  and  that  the  mistake  should  be  perpetuated  with- 
out a  single  protest  from  any  source,  or  attempt  at 
correction  until  the  present  day.  It  is,  further,  some- 
what singular  that  the  people  termed  "Manda"  do  not 
seem  to  have  had  any  positively  fixed  territorial  limits 
or  possessions,  but  were  emphatically  "widespread;" 
the  term  "Manda"  being  seemingly  applied  as  were 
and  are  the  words  "barbarians"  and  "Gentiles,^'  or 
"heathen"  or  "nomads,"  and  for  the  same  reason,  as 
being  descriptive  or  referring  to  some  marked  char- 
acteristic common  to  many  peoples  that  in  other 
respects  were  distinct  and  separate.  The  single  ap- 
parent exception  in  the  case  of  the  Ekbatanites  simply 
illustrates  and  confirms  this  explanation  as  being  the 
beginning  of  that  settlement  of  the  roving  tribes  or 
clans  which  ultimately  consolidated,  most  of  them 
under  the  control  of  a  central  government.  Thus  the 
"Medes"  were  doubtless  In  their  earher  years  classed 
by  the  more  cultured  Semites  with  the  "Manda,"  but 
it  seems  certain  that  all  "Manda"  were  not  "Medes." 
We  have  seen  that  Darius,  and  for  the  same  reason 
Gobryas,  cannot  be  Indentlfied  with  Astyages,  and  must 
therefore  be  sought  elsewhere.  In  Xenophon,  Astyages 
IS  said  to  have  had  a  son  who  was  named  Cyaxares  TI, 
Josephus  also  writes:  "When  Babylon  was  taken  by 


84        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Darius,  and  when  he  with  his  kinsman  Cyrus  had  put 
an  end  to  the  dominion  of  the  Babylonians,  he  was 
sixty-two  years  old.  He  was  the  son  of  Astyages,  and 
had  another  name  among  the  Greeks"  (Ant.,  bk.  xi, 
ch.  xi,  4).  Herodotos,  on  the  other  hand,  a  writer 
said  to  be  contemporary  with  the  daughter  of  Cyrus, 
expressly  declares  that  Astyages  "had  no  male  issue" 
(i,  109,  p.  49). 

The  data  recorded  in  Daniel  and  in  Josephus  would 
make  Darius  seven  years  old  when  the  death  of 
Cyaxares  I  occurred,  and  it  seems  sufficiently  attested 
by  a  comparison  and  combination  of  the  statements  of 
Daniel,  Josephus  and  Xenophon  that  such  a  person  as 
Cyaxares  II  did  exist,  and  that  he  was  not  the  son 
but  a  younger  brother  of  Astyages,  the  son  of  Cyaxares 
I,  and  as  such  by  Oriental  custom  the  rightful  heir  to 
the  throne  of  Media,  and  that  this  heirship,  belonging 
preferably  to  the  king's  brother  in  the  east,  led,  per- 
haps, to  the  idea  that  he  was  son  of  Astyages,  as  the 
western  custom  would  give  this  right  to  the  son,  and 
not  to  the  brother. 

Coincidently,  Daniel's  Darius  the  Mede  is  the  son 
of  Ahasuerus  (Cyaxares)    (ix,  i).*     That  this  name 

♦In  the  version  of  the  Septuagint  called  "the  real  Septuagint  Text,"  this 
verse  reads  thus  ;  "  Darius,  the  son  of  Xerxes,  of  the  race  of  the  Medes.'  In  this 
substitution  of  Xerxes  for  Ahasuerus,  the  translators  could  not  have  referred  to 
the  Xerxes  whose  queen  was  Esther,  since  he  was  not  of  the  "  race  "  of  the  Medes, 
but  was  the  son  of  Darius  Hystaspes,  a  Persian.  Neither  could  the  Ahasuerus 
of  Esther  have  been  the  Ahasuerus  of  Tobit,  since  that  Ahasuerus  (Cyaxares  I) 
was  nt  no  time  ruler  of  a  kingdom  that  reached  from  India  to  Ethiopia,  as  was 
Xerxes'  (Esther  i.  i).  The  translators  in  this  version  of  Daniel  must  have  in- 
tended by  "  Darius  the  son  of  Xerxes"  the  same  person  as  "  Darius  the  son  of 
Ahasuerus,"  as  in  the  more  exact  version  of  Theodotion. 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        85 

is  the  equivalent  of  the  Greek  Cyaxares  Ahasuerus 
appears  clearly  from  its  application  in  Tobit  cyaxares/^"^ 
xiv,  13,  where  it  is  recorded  that  before 
Tobit  died  *'he  heard  of  the  destruction  of  Nineveh, 
which  had  been  taken  by  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Ahas- 
uerus." Thus  used  in  connection  with  the  destruction 
of  Nineveh  by  the  united  forces  of  the  Medes  under 
Cyaxares  I  and  the  Babylonians  under  Nabopolassar 
and  his  son  Nebuchadnezzar,  there  can  be  no  question 
as  to  its  being  another  or  Hebrew  transliteration  of  the 
name  of  the  Median  king,  by  the  Greeks  transliterated 
as  Cyaxares. 

By  almost  universal  consent  Ahasuerus,  the  king 
whose  consort  was  Esther,  is  identified  with  Xerxes 
the  Persian,  whose  invasion  of  Greece  was  Ahasuerus 
so  conspicuous  a  failure.  The  same  name  ?he^^^AKu- 
occurs  in  Ezra  iv,  6,  and  it  remains  to  e^"^i"Ezra. 
identify  the  historic  king  so  designated  by  Ezra.  The 
passage  reads  thus:  ''Then  the  people  of  the  land 
.  .  .  hired  counselors  against  them  [the  Israelites],  to 
frustrate  their  purpose,  all  the  days  of  Cyrus  king  of 
Persia,  even  until  the  reign  of  Darius  king  of  Persia. 
And  in  the  reign  of  Ahasuerus,  in  the  beginning  of 
his  reign,  wrote  they  unto  him  an  accusation  against 
the  inhabitants  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem."  Possibly  in 
the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  both  Cyrus  and  Ahas- 
uerus the  complaints  came  to  the  latter,  with  the  hope 
of  a  more  successful  issue  through  his  mediation  than 
they  could  expect  through  a  direct  application  to  his 
imperial  suzerain,  who  had,  perhaps,  as  above  sug- 


86         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

gested,   even   then   committed   himself   by   his   early 
proclamation  as  Cyrus  king  of  Persia. 

With  the  fall  of  Babylon  began  the  reign  of  Cyrus 
and  the  governorship  of  Gobryas  (Ugbaru)  over 
Babylonia,  to  v^hich  the  province  of  Syria,  including 
Judea,  appertained.  In  truth,  it  seems  that  for  a  time 
the  entirety  of  the  territory  wrested  from  Nabonidos, 
by  which  the  independent  Babylono-Chaldean  dominion 
was  extinguished,  continued  to  be  administered  by  the 
subordinate  king  or  governor  of  Babylonia,  or  the 
Chaldeans.  This  change  of  masters  of  Judea  from  the 
Babylono-Chaldean  empire  to  that  of  the  subordinate 
king  or  governor  of  the  Chaldeans  resident  in  Baby- 
lon, at  that  time  the  capital  city  of  the  Medo-Persian 
empire,  was  doubtless  seized  as  a  favorable  opportunity 
to  crush  the  incipient  effort  for  the  rehabilitation  of  the 
Jewish  kingdom.  From  this  beginning  the  opposition 
continued  until  the  reign  of  Darius  son  of  Hystaspes 
king  of  Persia,  after  whose  advent  the  primacy  of  the 
Medes  seems  to  have  disappeared.  In  Esther,  under 
the  reign  of  his  son  and  successor  Xerxes,  Persia  is 
named  first  or  named  alone,  except  once  only  in  the 
closing  verses  of  the  book  ;  this  exception  being  due, 
perhaps,  to  the  greater  familiarity  of  the  Jewish  writer 
with  the  form  found  in  the  earlier  prophets  and  Daniel. 
But  in  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  this  combination,  Medo- 
Persian,  or  Medes  and  Persians,  is  not  found ;  these 
being  testimonies,  incidental,  it  is  true,  but,  therefore, 
all  the  more  forcible,  in  support  of  Daniel  as  being  in 
accord  with  the  earlier  prophets  of  Judah,  who  could 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        87 

not  have  derived  their  phraseology  from  the  Macca- 
bean  Age. 

Accepting  as  substantially  accurate  the  authorities 
most  relied  upon  for  the  rulers  from  the  taking  of 
Babylon  (S^8)  to  the  accession  of  Darius      succession 

r  Tx  .  X  1  ,•  «f  rulers  in 

son  of  Hystaspes  (521),  v^e  have,  accordmg  Ptolemy,  ez- 
to  Ezra,  successively,  Cyrus,  the  Median  i^i'. 
name  Ahasuerus  (Greek,  Cyaxares  II),  and  Artaxerx- 
es.  In  Daniel  we  have  for  the  same,  or  part  of  the  same, 
period  but  two  names,  Darius  the  Median  and  Cyrus. 
In  the  list  of  Ptolemy  we  have  but  one  king  between 
Cyrus  and  the  Hystaspean  Darius,  namely,  Cambyses, 
the  son  of  Cyrus,  in  agreement  with  the  inscriptions. 
As  stated,  the  opposition  of  the  Samaritans  to  the 
work  attempted  at  Jerusalem  continued  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  reign  of  Cyrus  to  the  second  year  of 
Darius  Hystaspes,  king  of  Persia  (Ezra  iv,  5,  et  seq., 
24).  It  is  also  certain  that  (v,  6,  etc.)  the  Ahasuerus 
and  the  Artaxerxes  named  are  placed  by  Ezra,  and  in 
this  order,  between  the  reigns  of  Cyrus  and  Darius. 
It  is  also  to  be  carefully  noted  as  a  suggestive  fact  that 
Ahasuerus  is  not  by  Ezra  styled  "king  of  Persia," 
this  kingship  of  Persia  being  applied  in  this  chapter 
only  to  Cyrus,  and  to  this  Artaxerxes,  to  Darius,  and 
to  the  Artaxerxes  mentioned  in  chapter  vi,  verse  14. 
If,  therefore,  we  follow  Ezra  in  his  order  of  succession, 
we  are  absolutely  precluded  from  confounding  this 
first-named  Artaxerxes,  who  in  this  order  is  made  to 
precede  Darius,  with  the  Artaxerxes  of  chapter  vi, 
verse  14,  who  in  this  order  is  placed  after  Darius 


88        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Hystaspes,  and  was  doubtless  his  grandson,  surnamed 
Longimanus.  Up  to  the  close  of  the  third  chapter 
Ezra  had  given  the  story  of  the  return  of  *'the  children 
of  the  captivity"  from  the  first  year  of  Cyrus  to  the 
completion  of  the  temple  and  its  dedication  in  the 
second  year  of  Darius  Hystaspes  (chapter  iii),  reserv- 
ing for  this  fourth  chapter  the  details  of  the  oppo- 
sition which  was  encountered  during  this  period 
(cf.  V.  24;  Hag.  ii,  i,  etc.).  How  accurately  these 
statements  of  Ezra  accord  with  Ptolemy,  the  secu- 
lar authority  most  relied  upon,  may  now  be  made  to 
appear. 

In  Ptolemy^s  list  the  succession  of  kings  of  Baby- 
lon, the  then  capital  of  the  Medo- Persian  kingdom,  is 
Ezra  and  as   follows:    Cyrus    (S38-S20);   Cambvses, 

Ptolemy  •'  \oo     o    ^j  y 

agree.  his  son  (529-521)  ;  Darius  Hystaspes  (521- 

485)  ;  Xerxes,  his  son  (485-465)  ;  Artaxerxes  Longi- 
manus, his  son  (465-425).  It  will  be  observed  that 
the  name  of  Smerdes  (i.  e.,  Bardes,  Gomates,  Tany- 
oxares,  Oropastes,  as  he  is  variously  named)  is  not  in- 
serted in  this  list,  his  usurpation  having  occurred  dur- 
ing the  later  years  of  Cambyses,  and  continued  but  a 
few  months  after  the  death  of  that  king ;  when  he  was 
slain  at  the  instance  of  conspirators,  who  at  once  pro- 
claimed Darius,  son  of  Hystaspes,  one  of  their  number, 
king  of  Persia,  who  was  thus  accounted  as  the  immedi- 
ate successor  of  Cambyses ;  the  brief  interval  occupied 
by  Smerdes  being  included  in  the  time  allotted  to  Cam- 
byses and  this  Darius.  Neither  docs  the  name  of  Ahas- 
uerus  nor  of  Darius  the  Median  appear  in  this  list. 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        89 

and  this  omission  can  only  be  justified  on  the  ground 
that  neither  name  is  set  forth  by  either  Ezra  or  Daniel 
as  being  king  of  the  Medo-Persian  kingdom.  If, 
however,  as  is  herein  contended,  each  name  is  taken  as 
indicating  one  and  the  same  person,  that  person  is  dis- 
tinctly designated  by  his  Median  name  Ahasuerus, 
and  title  Darius,  as  a  Median,  and  as  "king  of  the 
Chaldeans,"  or  "of  Babylon."  As  such,  his  first  year's 
reign  is  clearly  shown  in  Daniel  to  be  contemporary 
with  the  first  year  of  Cyrus,  he  being  certainly  simply 
ruler  of  the  designated  part  of  the  empire,  and  de- 
pendent upon  and  subordinate  to  Cyrus,  who  was  king 
of  the  whole  realm ;  his  relation  to  Cyrus  being  some- 
what similar  to  that  of  Herod  the  Great,  as  king  of 
Judea,  to  Augustus,  the  Imperator  of  the  entire  Roman 
world,  of  which  the  kingdom  of  Judea  formed  but  a 
small  part. 

It  will  be  seen  that  there  is  but  one  king  whose  name 
appears  in  Ptolemy's  list  as  reigning  over  Persia  after 
Cyrus  and  before  Darius  Hystaspes,  namely,  cambyses 
Cambyses,  the  son  of  Cyrus.  Coincidently,  Artaxerx?s 
there  is  named  by  Ezra  as  reigning  in  the 
same  interim  but  one  person  styled  king  of  Persia, 
therefore  having  the  same  jurisdiction  or  dominion  as 
his  predecessor  Cyrus  and  his  successor  Darius, 
namely,  "Artaxerxes  king  of  Persia"  (iv,  7).  To  this 
king,  expressly  stated  to  be  "Artaxerxes  king  of 
Persia,"  accusation  was  made  by  letter,  and  in  reply 
the  complainants  were  com.manded  to  cause  the  work 
at  Jerusalem  "to  cease,  and  that  the  city  be  not  build- 


90        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

ed."  Accordingly,  the  work  ceased  ''unto  the  second 
year  of  the  reign  of  Darius  king  of  Persia."  (See 
the  entire  correspondence,  iv,  7-24.)  This  record,  and 
the  coincidence  which  it  marks,  seems  sufficient  to  war- 
rant the  conclusion  that  this  Artaxerxes  in  Ezra  and 
Cambyses  of  Ptolemy  and  of  the  secular  historians  are 
but  different  names  for  one  and  the  same  person — the 
only  legitimate  king  of  Persia  intermediate  between 
Cyrus  and  Darius  son  of  Hystaspes,  viz.,  Cambyses 
son  of  Cyrus.  Such  a  decree  accords  well  with  the 
character  of  this  arbitrary,  impulsive,  cruel,  iconoclas- 
tic temple-destroying  king,  and  is  wholly  inconsistent 
with  what  is  known  of  the  Artaxerxes  who  reigned 
later  than  his  father  Xerxes,  and  his  grandfather 
Darius  Hystaspes.  If  further  confirmation  of  this 
identity  is  required  it  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
Josephus  attributes  to  Cambyses  what  in  the  remainder 
of  this  fourth  chapter  of  Ezra  follows  this  sixth 
verse,  and  which  is  by  Ezra  attributed  to  x\rtaxerxes 
king  of  Persia  (Ant.,  bk.  xi,  ch.  ii).  That  no  relief 
was  afforded  the  Samaritan  complainants  until  after 
the  accession  of  Darius  accords  well  with  the  accounts 
given  of  this  period  in  the  secular  histories.  The 
decree  was  doubtless  issued  by  Cambyses  when  busied 
with  the  preparations  for  his  Egyptian  expedition,  from 
which  he  did  not  get  farther  on  his  way  back  than  Da- 
mascus, where  he  died.  His  absence,  and  the  constant 
demands  of  his  hazardous  enterprise,  put  him  practi- 
cally out  of  the  reach  of  counter  influences;  and  at 
home  the  authorities  left  in  char<^e  were  sufficientlv 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        91 

occupied  with  the  effort  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the 
empire  in  the  face  of  disturbances,  attempted  revolts, 
and  at  last  a  usurpation  of  the  throne  itself.  They 
were  not,  therefore,  likely  to  be  in  the  mood  to  meddle 
with  the  affairs  of  this  outlying  province  of  Syria.  It 
is  not  known  that  Cambyses  is  elsewhere  addressed  as 
Artaxerxes,  but  this  need  not  stand  in  the  way  of  this 
identification,  since,  as  we  have  seen,  names  were  some- 
what laxly  used,  and  certain  apparently  throne  names, 
among  them  Darius  and  Artaxerxes,  were  evidently 
frequently  assumed  by  claimants  to  the  throne.  "It 
has  been  abundantly  evinced  that  Artaxerxes  is  a  regal 
name,  and  was  assumed  by  all  who  were  certainly 
known  to  have  borne  it  in  addition  to  their  private  and 
personal  designation  on  their  accession  to  the  regal 
power."  So  Bessus,  after  the  murder  of  Darius  Codo- 
mannus,  "assumed  the  upright  tiara  and  royal  robe  and 
the  name  Artaxerxes  instead  of  Bessus,  proclaiming 
himself  'king  of  Asia'  "  (Encyclo.  Brit.,  vol.  ii,  pp. 
641,  642). 

With  this  identification  of  this  Artaxerxes  as  Cam- 
byses sufficiently  established,  as  in  every  way  most 
probable,  and  this  probability  confirmed  by  Josephus, 
this  part  of  the  difficulty  in  Ezra  wholly  disappears, 
but  there  still  remains  that  which  the  introduction  of 
the  name  Ahasuerus  in  this  text  creates. 

The  purpose  to  be  subserved  by  the  removal  of  this 
difficulty  may  justify  or  excuse  somewhat  of  repeti- 
tion. As  this  Ahasuerus  precedes  Artaxerxes  in 
Ezra,  and  this  Artaxerxes  fills  up  the  interim  between 


92        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Cyrus  and  Darius  son  of  Hystaspes,  it  follows  that 
this  Ahasuerus  must  have  been  a  contemporary  of 
Cyrus.  As  we  have  suggested,  he  cannot  therefore 
have  been  the  Ahasuerus  of  Esther,  if  that  Ahas- 
uerus was  Xerxes,  since  Xerxes  was  the  son  and 
successor  of  Darius  Hystaspes.  It  was  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  reign  of  this  Ahasuerus,  according  to 
Ezra,  that  complaint  was  made  of  the  Jews,  but  ap- 
parently after  the  proclamation  of  Cyrus  had  gone 
forth,  with  the  hope,  doubtless,  that  through  his  medi- 
ation and  influence  with  Cyrus  the  purpose  of  the  Jews 
might  yet  be  frustrated.  But  according  to  Ezra,  Jo- 
sephus  and  Daniel,  their  efforts  were,  during  the  days 
of  Cyrus,  in  vain,  and  the  work  went  steadily  on  to- 
ward its  completion.  According  to  Daniel  the  first 
year  of  Cyrus  was  the  first  year  of  Darius  the  Aledian, 
of  whom  Cyrus  is  reported  to  be  a  kinsman,  a  statement 
fully  in  accord  with  the  Greek  writers.  It  would  seem 
also  that  Darius  the  Median  and  Ahasuerus  were 
either  contemporaries  or  two  names  used,  the  one  by 
Ezra,  the  other  by  Daniel,  for  one  and  the  same  person. 
In  Ezra  it  is  written  that  Ahasuerus,  whose  Median 
name  indicates  his  Median  origin,  reigned,  but  over 
what  or  whom  is  not  indicated.  In  Daniel  the  Mede 
is  introduced  without  any  pretense  of  possessing 
independent  authority,  but  clearly  exercising  his 
power  as  an  appointee,  contemporaneous  with  the 
higher  authority  to  whom  he  was  subordinate,  and 
by  whom,  as  is  represented,  he  seems  to  have  been 
honored,  as  well  with  the  title  as  with  the  functions  of 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        93 

a  king;  but  apparently  limited  to  the  kingdom  of  the 
Chaldeans,  with  Cyrus  the  king  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians,  his  kinsman,  as  suzerain.  That  neither  of 
these  names  appears  in  Ptolemy's  list  is  in  accord  with 
the  method  pursued  in  constructing  the  Canon.  In 
conformity  with  this  general  course  or  method,  as,  for 
example,  in  the  case  of  the  viceroys  appointed  by  the 
Assyrian  kings,  the  name  of  no  viceroy  or  governor  ap- 
pears when  the  suzerain  "Great  King's"  name  is  found ; 
and  yet  such  governor  in  all  probability  exercised  his 
proper  functions.  Thus  the  entry  of  the  name  of  Cyrus 
at  the  same  date  (538)  absolutely  excluded  the  name 
of  the  subordinate  or  viceroy. 

Reverting  now  to  the  identification  of  the  name 
Cyaxares  I  with  the  Hebrew  Ahasuerus,  as  found  in 
Tobit  xiv,  15,  it  is  suggestive  to  find  that  a  second 
Cyaxares  (Heb.,  Ahasuerus)  of  the  Median  regal 
race  is  named  in  the  Greek  books  treating  of  this  his- 
toric period,  who  is  said  to  have  been  intimately  con- 
nected with  Cyrus.  As  before  stated,  he  is  said  by 
Xenophon  to  be  a  son  of  Astyages,  the  last  Median 
monarch.  Accepting,  however,  the  authority  of  Herod- 
otos  in  the  assertion  that  Astyages  had  no  son,  it  fol- 
lows that  Xenophon  is  in  error  in  calling  Cyaxares  II 
the  son  of  Astyages.  And  this  accords  with  and  is 
corrected  by  Daniel.  For  if  Darius  the  Median  is  the 
same  as  the  person  named  by  Xenophon,  Cyaxares,  and 
Daniel  is  right,  then  he  was  not  the  son,  but  the 
brother,  of  Astyages  (Istuvegu)  the  son  of  (Ahasu- 
erus) Cyaxares  I;  and  whether  his  real  name  was  or 


94        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

was  not  Cyaxares  (Ahasuerus)  his  father  bore  that 
name  and  was  a  Mede,  As  before  stated,  the  brother 
would  be,  in  the  Orient,  the  preferred  and  rightful 
heir  to  the  throne  of  the  deposed  king.  But  Astyages 
was  never  king  of  Babylon,  nor  of  the  kingdom  of  the 
Chaldeans.  He  was  king  of  the  Medes,  and  of  what- 
ever the  Medes  had  under  their  sway,  and,  therefore, 
his  brother,  the  son  of  Cyaxares  I  (Ahasuerus  I), 
could  only  be  heir  apparent  to  the  kingdom  of  the 
Medes,  or  of  the  heterogeneous  masses  ''of  the  people," 
"the  widespread  people  of  the  Manda.'^  A  son  of 
Cyaxares  I  would  be  "of  the  seed  of  the  Medes." 
Doubtless,  Xenophon  had  drawn  upon  his  imagination 
for  many  of  his  incidents  and  descriptions,  but  under- 
lying or  beside  his  story  there  is,  in  all  likelihood,  a 
stratum  of  fact,  of  which  the  statement  of  both  Daniel 
and  Josephus  as  to  at  least  this  matter  affords  confir- 
mation, and  to  it  lends  a  credence  of  which  it  would 
otherwise  perhaps  be  unworthy,  namely,  that  after  the 
defeat  and  dethronement  of  Astyages  there  still  re- 
mained another  member  of  the  royal  house  of  Media ; 
that  he  and  Cyrus  were  kinsmen,  and  that  for  a  time  he 
was  in  great  favor  with  his  illustrious  kinsman.  We 
may  hereinafter  suggest  reason  for  his  further  repre- 
sentation, that  after  a  time  his  principal  residence  was 
the  northern  Ekbatana,  the  original  Median  capital, 
where  he  bore  himself  with  regal  magnificence.  Nor 
would  the  permission  of  such  rule  be  out  of  harmony 
with  the  course  which  was  pursued  by  Cyrus  in  the 
case  of  Nabonidos  and  of  Croesus  of  Lvdia,  but  would 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        95 

warrant  the  expectation  that  this  son  of  the  fallen 
house  to  which  he  himself  was  closely  related  would 
receive  special  favor  and  consideration.  As  Nabonidos 
was  intrusted  with  the  governorship  of  Karmania,  and 
Astyages  is  reported  to  have  been  treated  with  great 
kindness,  there  is  not  the  least  improbability  in  the 
inference  that  the  younger  brother  of  the  dethroned 
king,  especially  if  a  man  of  character  and  ability  and 
known  to  be  loyal  to  the  "Great  King,"  should  have 
had,  prior  to  the  taking  of  Babylon,  the  governorship 
or  viceroyalty  of  Kurdistan,  territory  a  large  part  of 
which  had  been  dominated  by  the  kings  of  the  Medes, 
and  in  which  as  Kurdish  tribes  or  clans  the  Medes  had 
pursued  the  life  of  "Manda,"  roving,  nomadic  lives.  As 
a  prince  of  the  royal  house  of  Media,  he  may  have  been 
known  to  the  people  by  the  appellative  "Darius,"  a 
name  or  title  that  seems  to  have  belonged  only  to 
royalty  among  the  Medes  and  their  kindred  the 
Persians. 

So,  therefore,  he  appears  in  Daniel  without  other 
personal  name,  his  relationship  and  house,  however, 
being  distinctively  defined  by  the  unequivocal  claim 
that  he  was  a  Mede^,  "Darius  the  son  of  Ahasuerus," 
who  could  be  no  other  than  the  Cyaxares  I  (Ahas- 
uerus I)  of  the  Ninevite  conquest.  If  it  seemed  wise 
to  conciliate  the  friends  of  Nabonidos,  by  conferring 
upon  him  the  control  of  Karmania,  it  would  seem  a  still 
greater  manifestation  of  political  wisdom  to  conciliate 
the  people  who  had  been  the  subjects  of  the  great 
empire  of  Media,  by  securing  the  support  of  its  royal 


96        Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  CyruS 

house,  especially  so  if  its  surviving  representative  was 
a  man  of  character  and  action ;  as  was  also  wisely  con- 
ciliatory, the  condescending  union  of  the  two  names, 
the  Mede  first,  in  the  title  of  the  new  government,  the 
Medo-Persian,  as  lessening  the  sense  of  humiliation. 

To  afterward  intrust  to  the  Median  prince  the  con- 
trol of  that  vast  empire  which  had  marshaled  under  its 
banners  "the  widespread  people  of  the  Manda,"  the 
heterogeneous  multitudes  of  the  farther  north,  but  ever 
pressing  their  way  to  the  south  lands,  was  at  once  a 
bold  assertion  of  the  belief  of  Cyrus  in  the  invulnerable- 
ness  of  the  empire  and  of  confidence  in  the  Medes.  The 
assignment  was  indeed  befitting  in  their  kinsman ;  and, 
as  conceding  coequalization,  could  not  be  otherwise 
than  gratifying  to  them.  For  they  were  the  peers  of 
their  Persian  conquerors,  of  the  same  ethnic  race,  their 
equals  in  bravery,  vastly  outnumbering  "his  little 
army,"  lacking  only  at  the  time  of  their  overthrow  unity 
and  a  leader  of  consummate  skill,  to  whom  they  could 
be  devoted,  such  as  was  afterward  found  in  Gobryas 
(Darius),  now  loyally  in  the  service  of  his  suzerain 
the  "Great  King"  in  his  militant  march  from  the  inhos- 
pitable clime  of  their  northern  capital,  Ekbatana,  to 
the  sunlit  palaces  of  Babylon  and  Shushan,  or 
Susa.  Neither  is  it  at  all  improbable  that,  Baby- 
lon now  thoroughly  organized  and  in  complete  sub- 
jection and  submissive  to  Cyrus,  he  should  be  re- 
manded to  his  former  governorship,  where  his  services 
would  be  more  greatly  needed,  and  where,  in  a  wider 
field,  he  could  maintain  the  same  orderlv  obedience 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        97 

to  the  new  imperium  that  had  obtained  under  his  wise 
administration  in  Babylonia  among  the  Chaldeans. 

We  may  now  emphasize  the  fact  that  in  Ezra  the 
reign  of  Ahasuerus  precedes  that  of  Artaxerxes  king 
of  Persia,  who  is  also  the  predecessor  of  Darius  Hys- 
taspes,  and  thus  comes  between  Cyrus  and  this  Darius. 
As  there  is  listed  by  Ptolemy  but  one  king  of  Persia, 
Cambyses  by  name,  as  reigning  during  that  interim 
over  the  Persian  empire,  the  identity  of  the  person 
named  by  Ezra  Artaxerxes,  and  by  Ptolemy  and 
Josephus  Cambyses,  seems  to  be  indisputably  con- 
firmed, that  being  simply  his  throne  name;  so  that, 
having,  like  Bessus,  assumed  it,  his  proper  address 
would  be  Artaxerxes  Cambyses,  as  is  exemplified  in  the 
case  of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus ;  the  only  historically 
possible  but  most  improbable  and  inconsequential  al- 
ternative being  that  of  the  usurper  Smerdes,  among 
whose  numerous  appellatives  this  one  is  nowhere  found 
recorded. 

It  is  therefore  very  significant,  and  In  exact  accord- 
ance with  the  secular  histories  and  inscriptions,  that 
the  Ahasuerus  who  preceded  Artaxerxes  is  not  said  to 
have  reigned  over  the  Medo-Persian  or  Persian  em- 
pire, since  he  could  not  have  so  reigned,  the  time  and 
territory  having  been  preoccupied  by  Cyrus.  Yet  If 
he  preceded  Artaxerxes  he  must  have  reigned  con- 
temporaneously with  Cyrus.  From  this  it  follows  that 
his  rcign  was  in  subordination  to  Cyrus,  and  the  rela- 
tion of  Cyrus  to  him  must  have  been  that  of  suzerainty 
over  a  part  of  the  empire  not  specifically  named.    But 


98         Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

the  connecting  of  his  name  with  the  complaints  of  the 
Jewish  enemies  sufficiently  indicates  his  kingdom,  since 
after  the  fall  of  Nineveh  to  Babylon  alone  could  they 
look  for  help,  or  for  redress  of  their  grievances.  His 
reign  was  therefore  over  Babylon,  or  the  kingdom  of 
the  Chaldeans. 

But  for  this  same  period,  and  under  this  same  "Great 
King"  as  suzerain,  according  to  Daniel,  Darius  the 
Median  was  king  in  Babylon  of  the  kingdom  of  the 
Chaldeans.  Darius  and  this  Ahasuerus  (Greek,  Cyax- 
ares)  must  therefore  be  one  and  the  same  person. 

In  the  inscriptions  a  third  name  appears  of  a  person 
exercising  the  functions  of  government  in  subordina- 
tion to  the  same  "Great  King"  as  suzerain,  whose  rule 
began  at  the  same  time  and  covers  identically  the  same 
period  as  that  distinctly  named  by  Daniel,  and  inferen- 
tially  determined  in  Ezra,  namely,  Gobryas  (Ugbaru), 
of  Gutium,  or  Kurdistan,  the  commander  of  the  army 
which  entered  Babylon  in  triumph. 

As  to  each  of  these  is  attributed  the  same  rule  over 
the  same  territory,  under  the  same  suzerain,  beginning 
at  the  same  time,  and,  so  far  as  can  be  determined,  for 
the  same  period,  it  seems  indisputably  to  follow  that 
the  several  names  belong  to  one  and  the  same  person. 

In  this  Gobryas,  of  Kurdistan,  the  commander  of  the 
army  which  entered  and  took  possession  of  Babylon 
Identity  ^"  ^^^^  absence  of  Cyrus,  there  seem,  there- 
Smi' Darius  ^^^^y  ^o  meet  the  conditions  required  to 
shown.  identify  Darius  the  Median  as  the  second 

(Greek)  Cyaxares  (Hebrew,  Ahasuerus),  the  son  of 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus        99 

the  first    (Greek)    Cyaxares,    (Hebrew,   Ahasuerus), 
named  by  Daniel  and  Ezra. 

( 1 )  The  age  of  Darius  favors  this  identity.  As  we 
have  seen,  his  birth  occurred  B.  C.  600-599,  some  six 
or  seven  years  before  the  death  of  his  father  ^  ^^^ 
Cyaxares  I,  or  Ahasuerus,  and  if  reared  in  ^^^^^' 
the  royal  palace  or  household  of  Astyages  he  might 
readily  have  passed  for  and  been  popularly  supposed  to 
be  his  son,  and  there  is  thus  readily  seen  how  the  differ- 
ent reports  could  have  currency,  while  the  better  in- 
formed knew  that  to  Astyages  no  son  had  been  born. 
In  that  case,  too,  the  intimacy  and  confidence  said  mutu- 
ally to  exist  between  the  person  in  Xenophon  named 
Cyaxares  and  Cyrus  are  accounted  for;  since  they 
may  have  grown  up  together,  and  formed  their  at- 
tachment in  their  early  manhood,  when  Cyrus  was  held 
at  the  court  of  Astyages  in  some  sort  as  a  hostage  for 
the  loyalty  of  Persia,  an  attachment  such  as  that  of 
David  and  Jonathan  in  the  household  of  Saul.  At  the 
fall  of  Astyages  he  would  be  in  his  forty-second  year, 
some  two  years  older  than  Cyrus,  and  this  also  renders 
credible  the  report  that  the  ''Great  King"  had  afterward 
married  a  daughter  of  this  son  of  Cyaxares  I,  the  legiti- 
mate heir  to  the  Median  crown,  and  thus  strengthened 
his  hold  upon  his  Median  subjects,  and  justified  still 
more  fully  the  title  of  his  imperium  as  the  Medo- 
Persian  empire. 

(2)  Both  the  inscriptions  and  Daniel  harmonize  in 
the  matter  of  the  absence  of  Cyrus  when  the  city  of 
Babylon  was  taken,  with  which  Herodotos    also  coin- 


100      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 
Absence  of  cides*  (i,  IQI ).    Thus,  the  inscriptions  State 

Cyrus    when  v        -^    ^  t. 

Babylon  fell,  that  Gobryas  entered  and  took  possession  of 
the  city;  Daniel  does  not  name  Cyrus,  nor  state  in  so 
many  words  who  first  entered  the  city ;  but, 

(3)  The  inscriptions  state  that  Gobryas  immediately 

assumed  the  functions  of  the  government  of  the  city, 

His  imme-  and  that  after  the  arrival  of  Cyrus  some 

tliate  govern- 
orship, four  months  later  his  authority  was  extend- 
ed to  include  the  province — substantially  the  Chaldean 
kingdom,  which  had  been  taken  from  Nabonidos. 
Daniel  states  that  Darius  the  Median  "took,"  or  re- 
ceived, "the  kingdom  of  the  Chaldeans,"  an  exact  state- 
ment of  the  fact  as  revealed  in  the  inscriptions  of  Cy- 
rus, differing  substantially  only  in  the  name  and  title 
of  the  governor.  In  each  record  the  extent  of  the 
dominion  covered  is  the  kingdom  of  the  Chaldeans 
covering  the  territory  of  Babylonia,  perhaps  Syria  and 
some  smaller  adjoining  districts,  but  not  the  entire 
empire  of  Cyrus.  It  must  be  distinctly  kept  in  mind 
that  as  to  what  was  governed  the  only  difference  seems 
to  be  in  the  words  used  to  convey  the  same  idea,  the 
manner  of  describing  the  same  boundaries.  Thus  in 
the  inscription  the  rendering  is,  "All  the  province  of 
Babylon"  (502)  ;  in  Daniel  it  is  "the  kingdom"  or 
"realm  of  the  Chaldeans,"  a  difference  in  form,  but 
suggesting  the  same  extent  of  dominion,  the   same 

♦Herodotos  states  that  Cyrus  stationed  the  bulk  of  his  army  near  where  the  river 
enters  the  city,  another  division  beyond  (south)  of  the  city,  and,  with  the  inefficient 
part  of  the  army,  himself  marched  northward  to  the  lake,  and  there,  by  means  of  a 
canal  or  trenches,  diverted  the  water  sufficiently  from  its  natural  channel  to  make 
a  passage  for  the  forces  under  Gobryas  into  the  heart  of  the  city,  (See  also 
pp.  46  and  82  below.) 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      101 

territorial  limits.  For  when  the  kingdom  of  Nabonidos 
was  wrested  from  him  this  was  about  what  he  had  to 
surrender.  In  this  item  both  records  must  apparently 
refer  to  one  and  the  same  person,  for  there  could  not  be 
two  persons  exercising  the  same  powers  and  perform- 
ing the  same  executive  functions  in  the  same  city  and 
conterminous  territory  in  subordination  to  the  same 
supreme  authority,  in  the  one  case  named,  and  in  the 
other  certainly  implied. 

(4)  In  the  inscriptions  it  is  distinctly  stated  that 
"peace  to  the  city  did  Cyrus  establish,  peace  to  all  the 
province  of  Babylon  did  Gobryas  his  ^j^^  ^^^^^ 
governor  proclaim.  Governors  in  Babylon  and^form  at 
he  appointed."  So  in  Daniel  it  is  said  that  g«^«rnment. 
"Darius  the  Median  set  over  the  kingdom"  (i.  e.,  of  the 
Chaldeans)  "one  hundred  and  twenty  princes,  which 
should  be  over  the  whole  kingdom.  And  over  these 
three  presidents ;  that  the  princes  might  give  accounts 
unto  them,  and  the  king  should  have  no  damage" 
(vi,  I,  2).  Taking  into  account  the  somewhat  limited 
jurisdiction  claimed  by  Darius,  these  officers  must  have 
been  court  guardians,  heads  of  departments  of  finance, 
collectors  and  assessors  of  the  revenues,  military  at- 
taches of  the  king,  etc.,  etc.  Most  of  them  seem  to 
have  been  within  easy  call,  and  readily  collected  in 
Babylon,  for  consultation,  and  for  devising  schemes, 
professedly  for  the  advantage  of  the  king,  but  really 
to  minister  to  their  petty  jealousy,  and  to  serve  their 
own  paltry  "ends." 

This  limitation  of  territory,  as  well  as  the  number 


102       Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

(one  hundred  and  twenty)  appointed,  sufficiently  dif- 
ferentiates these  officers  from  the  twenty  satraps  sub- 
sequently appointed  by  Darius  Hystaspes,  and  renders 
nugatory  the  suggestion  that  this  statement  has  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  later  organization  of  the  entire 
empire  under  the  Hystaspean  regime.  Possibly  the 
method  of  Darius  (Gobryas)  on  the  smaller  scale,  it- 
self, perhaps,  in  part  a  continuance  of  a  preexisting 
system,*  may  have  suggested  the  method  on  the  larger 
scale  for  the  entire  empire;  just  as  it  is  most  probable 
that  the  method  whereby  Cyrus  made  his  approaches 
to  Babylon,  thus  making  "fighting"  almost  useless,  and 
successful  resistance  improbable  in  their  disaffection  to 
the  ruling  dynasty,  may  have  suggested  to  Darius  Hys- 
taspes the  same  method  when  Babylon  was  in  revolt 
against  him,  rather  than  the  reverse,  that  the  secular 
writers  should  stupidly  transfer  to  Cyrus  wdiat  from  its 
nearness  to  their  own  times  must  have  been  w^ell  known 
to  have  belonged  to  the  unsuccessful  stratagems  of  the 
later  times  of  the  Persian  king.f 

(5)  That  Gobryas  was  "of  the  seed  of  the  Medes" 
is  suggested  and  accords  well  with  the  fact  that  he  was 


♦Cf.  Dan.  ii,  49,  with  vi,  2. 

+  See  H.  C.  M..  p.  524,  for  this  singular  verdict.  But  Herodotos  positively 
states  that  Darius,  "Though  he  had  recourse  to  every  kind  of  stratagem  and  arti- 
fice against  the  Babylonians,"  yet  "  even  so  he  could  not  take  them,  and  having 
tried  other  stratagems,  he  made  trial  of  that  also  by  which  Cyrus  had  taken  them. 
However,  the  P.ahylonians  kept  strict  pruard,  and  he  was  not  a1)le  to  surprise 
them"  (iii,  152).  "The  feast,"  the  disaffection,  the  treachery  were  now  want- 
ing, and  these  are  what  made  possible  the  success  of  Cyrus  in  his  arduous  under- 
taking (1  Sec,  191).  Why  Herodotos  in  a  fiction  should  attribute  success  to 
this  scheme  in  the  case  of  Cyrus,  aud  failure  in  the  case  of  Darius,  is  incompre- 
hensible. 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus       103 
g^overnor  of  Kurdistan,  a  country  certainly 

,       ^,     , ,      :,  («)HisMe- 

under  Median  jurisdiction,  and  with  a  popu-   diau  extrac- 

•'  '  ^   ^        tionindi- 

lation  largely  of  Median  Kurdish  tribes  or  golemwshi^ 
clans.  That  he  stood  high  in  the  favor  and  o^i^^rdistan. 
confidence  of  Cyrus  and  was  of  noble  lineage  seems 
established  by  the  facts  that  he  bore  a  title  of  royalty 
peculiarly  Median  and  Persian,  and  was  in  command  of 
the  army ;  his  ability  and  trustworthiness  in  civil  affairs 
also  being  attested  by  his  being  at  once  intrusted  with 
the  civil  as  well  as  the  military  control  of  the  kingdom 
wrested  from  Nabonidos. 

(6)  Seventeen  years  after  the  capture  of  Babylon 
a  person  of  this  name,  a  son  of  Mardonius,  an  ancestor 
of  that  Mardonius  who  was  left  by  Xerxes  ^^.  g  ^j^^ 
in  Greece  to  complete  its  conquest  and  was  the^^^n^a^me 
slain  at  Platea,  was  among  the  conspirators,  ^^n  °pira- 
who  succeeded  (B.  C.  521)  in  placing 
Darius  Hystaspes  on  the  throne  instead  of  the  mur- 
dered Smerdes  Gomates.  In  the  list  of  conspirators 
furnished  by  Darius,  and  also  by  Herodotos  and  others, 
he  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  conspirators  are  said  to  be 
Persian  princes.  As  Darius  himself  was  distinctively 
a  Persian,  In  no  way  at  that  date  connected  by  mar- 
riage or  descent  with  the  Medes,  or  the  Median  royal 
family,  whatsoever  other  claim  or  claims  he  may  legiti- 
mately have  had  to  the  throne  or  empire,  so  large  a  part 
of  which  had  come  from  the  accession  of  Media,  none 
could  come  from  Median  consanguinity;  and  It  was 
natural,  therefore,  that  he  should  prefer  that  his  king- 
ship should  come  more  immediately  from  the  action 


104      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

of  those  of  his  own  nationaUty,  thus  also  evincing  the 
dominance  of  Persia,  which,  hereafter,  it  was  his  evi- 
dent intention  to  make  more  and  more  independent 
of  a  distinctively  Median  contingent,  and  to  sink  its 
severalty  indistinguishably  into  that  of  his  own  nation- 
ality. In  this  his  position  was  different  from  that  of 
Cyrus  and  Cambyses,  who  were  in  some  way  of  the 
"seed"  of  both  the  Median  and  Persian  royal  houses. 
If  in  giving  out  this  list  of  conspirators  as  Persians 
he  acted  on  the  principles  which,  according  to  Herod- 
otos,  he  set  forth  in  his  exhortation  to  the  other  six 
princes,  his  statement  of  their  nationality  may  not  be 
strictly  correct,  but  have  put  upon  it  the  coloring  which 
would  best  accord  with  his  purposes.  ''When  a  lie 
must  be  told  let  it  be  told,  for  we  all  aim  at  the  same 
ends,  both  they  who  tell  lies  and  they  who  keep  the 
truth.  Some  tell  lies  when  by  persuading  with  false- 
hoods they  are  likely  to  gain  some  advantage,  while 
others  speak  the  truth  in  order  that,  by  the  truth,  they 
may  acquire  some  advantage,  and  something  further 
may  be  intrusted  to  them ;  thus  by  different  processes 
we  arrive  at  the  same  end"  (iii,  §13).  But  be  this  as 
it  may,  the  Gobryas  of  the  conspiracy  cannot  well  be 
accepted  as  he  of  the  Babylonian  conquest.  At  the 
murder  of  Smerdes  he  would  have  been  in  his  eight- 
ieth year,  while  the  entire  procedure  of  this  prince 
indicates  him  to  be  a  much  younger  man;  and  if  of 
Median  extraction,  most  thoroughly  Persianized.  He 
is  also  set  down  as  the  "son  of  Mardonius."  It  is  pos- 
sible, however,  that  this  Mardonius  may  have  been  a 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      105 

son  of  Gobryas  (Darius).  Assuming,  hypothetically, 
that  Mardonius  was  born  B.  C.  575  (in  his  father's 
twenty-sixth  year),  in  B.  C.  521  he  would  be  fifty- four 
years  old.  If  his  son,  the  second  Gobryas,  was  born, 
say,  B.  C.  550,  in  521  he  would  be  twenty-nine  years 
old,  an  age  which  would  accord  well  with  his  zeal  and 
energy,  in  word  and  deed,  with  the  representations 
made  by  Herodotos.  If  in  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  his 
age,  B.  C.  525,  his  son  Mardonius  was  born,  at  the 
accession  of  Xerxes  he  would  be  in  his  forty-first  year, 
B.  C.  485,  an  age  which  would  very  well  agree  with  his 
influence  at  court  and  his  standing  in  the  army,  as 
general  in  chief  of  the  forces  left  to  subject  Greece. 
In  the  third  generation  a  scion  of  the  Median  royal 
house  might  easily  have  become  so  identified  with  the 
Persians  as  to  have  lost  all  interest  in  his  Median  an- 
cestry or  country,  and  indeed,  as  often  happens  in  the 
change  from  one  habitat  to  another,  to  have  a  stronger 
love  for  the  new  than  for  the  old  country  and  con- 
nections. 

There  are  not  wanting,  however,  indications  of  a 
Median  nationality  among  the  seven  conspirators. 
Thus  in  the  Median  form  of  the  Behistun  inscription 
Darius  makes  mention  of  a  Median  general  named 
Intaphernes  whom  he  employed  in  suppressing  a  Baby- 
lonian revolt;  a  name  the  same  as  that  of  one  of  the 
seven,  who  was  introduced  to  the  rest  by  Otanes  as  a 
friend,  and  "as  one  in  whom  he  could  place  most  re- 
liance" (Her.,  iii,  §70 ;  R.  P.,  vol.  vli,  39,  p.  104),  Otanes 
in  all  probability  being  "of  the  seed  of  the  Medes," 


106      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Indeed,  in  the  case  of  Otanes,  one  of  the  most  in- 
fluential and  independent  of  the  seven,  a  peculiar 
agreement  was  entered  into,  when  finally  he  withdrew 
from  further  connection  with  the  conspirators'  proceed- 
ings. In  their  discussions  of  the  course  which  it 
seemed  most  advisable  to  pursue,  and  the  form  of 
government  best  to  be  established,  Otanes  gave  it  as 
his  opinion  ''that  we  should  do  away  with  the  mon- 
archy and  exalt  the  people,  for  in  the  many  all  things 
are  found."  Possibly  in  this  advice  he  was  influenced 
by  observing  the  evident  purpose  and  tendency  among 
the  Persians,  though  fewer  in  numbers,  to  ignore  the 
Medes,  a  tendency  which  he  found  no  other  way  of 
counteracting.  When,  however,  the  opinion  of  Otanes, 
who  was  anxious  to  introduce  equality  among  the 
Persians,  was  overruled,  he  thus  spoke  in  the  midst  of 
them :  "Associates,  since  it  is  evident  that  some  one  of  us 
must  be  made  king,  either  appointed  by  you  or  by  the 
body  of  the  Persians  intrusting  the  government  to 
whom  they  may  choose,  or  by  some  other  way,  now  I 
will  enter  into  no  competition  with  you,  for  I  wish 
neither  to  govern  nor  to  be  governed.  But  on  this  condi- 
tion I  give  up  all  claims  to  the  government,  that  neither 
I  nor  any  of  my  posterity  may  be  subject  to  any  of  you." 
To  these  terms  the  rest  agreed,  and  further  determined 
"that  to  Otanes  and  his  posterity  forever,  if  the  kingdom 
should  devolve  upon  any  other  of  the  seven,  should 
be  given  a  Median  vest  yearly  by  way  of  distinction, 
together  with  all  such  presents  as  are  accounted  most 
honorable  among  the  Persians"  (Her.,  iii,  34).    There 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      107 

does  not  seem  to  be  any  other  reason  why  this  gift 
should  be  a  "Median  vest"  than  that  as  Medes  he  and 
his  posterity  were  to  be  thereby  recognized  and  ac- 
knowledged as  free  from  the  obligations  which  as  Per- 
sians they  would  be  under,  in  common  with  the  Persian 
princes ;  and  that  by  this  distinctive  garb  or  decoration 
their  Median  origin  and  special  privileges  would 
neither  be  forgotten  nor  ignored.  That  he  had  some 
special  claim  to  the  "government"  is  clearly  indicated 
by  his  own  statement,  and  by  the  readiness  with  which 
his  "giving  up  all  claims"  to  it  was  accepted  on  the 
conditions  which  he  himself  had  proposed ;  and  these 
conditions  convey  the  impression  that  his  abdication  or 
withdrawal  was  occasioned  by  his  conviction  that  the 
whole  matter  was  solely  in  the  hands  of  the  Persians, 
and  that  it  was  utterly  hopeless  to  contend  against  their 
power  and  numbers.  No  Mede  at  that  period  in  their 
history,  with  the  record  of  the  Median  Smerdes  fresh  in 
their  memory,  stood  any  chance  of  receiving  Persian 
suffrages  for  the  monarchical  succession. 

With  these  facts,  coincidences  and  suggestions  be- 
fore us,  and  duly  weighed,  it  is  hoped  that  it  is  not 
hazarding  too  much  to  submit  that  there  is  sufficient 
justification  for  accepting  as  true  the  statement  that 
Darius  the  Median,  the  son  of  Ahasuerus  (Cyaxares 
I)  in  Daniel,  Ahasuerus  (Cyaxares  II)  of  Ezra  iv,  6, 
Cyaxares  II  of  Xenophon,  and  Gobryas  (Ugbaru) 
governor  of  Kurdistan  and  Babylon  of  the  cuneiform 
inscriptions,  are  but  different  names  for  one  and  the 
same  person,  and  that  enough  at  least  is  established  to 


108       Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

warrant  the  behef  that  Daniel  wrote  with  absolute 
accuracy  and  in  perfect  accord  with  the  monuments; 
that  on  the  night  of  the  day  on  which  he  had  interpret- 
ed the  handwriting  upon  the  wall  and  had  in  conse- 
quence been  made  third  ruler  of  the  kingdom,  the 
second  ruler  "Belshazzar  the  king  of  the  Chaldeans 
was  slain,  and  Darius  the  Median  took  the  kingdom, 
being  about  threescore  and  two  years  old ;"  this  note 
of  age  being  very  important  and  contributing  largely 
to  this  identification.  As  before  stated,  it  is  not  at  all 
likely  that  the  Gobryas  of  the  conspirators  was  the 
Gobryas  who  led  the  army  of  Cyrus  into  Babylon,  but 
the  finding  of  Intaphernes  among  the  conspirators,  and 
the  incident  concerning  Otanes  seem  to  justify  the 
conclusion  that  he  was  a  son,  and  therefore  of  the 
"seed  of  the"  Median  royal  house. 

This  incident  in  the  story  of  the  overthrow  of  the 

usurper  Smerdes  and  the  accession  of  Darius  son  of 

(c)  By  the  Hystaspes  may  also  suggest  a  reason  for  the 

ous  disap-  sudden  disappearance  of  Darius  from  Bibli- 
pearauce  of  i/-.«  r  i        *  • 

Gobryas  and  cal  history,  and  Gobryas  from  secular  his- 

Darius  from  •'  -^ 

history.  tory,  namely,  the  evident  purpose  of  the 

Persians  as  soon  as  possible  to  supersede  the  Medes 
in  the  management  and  from  prominence  in  the  af- 
fairs of  the  empire.  The  very  assumption  of  the 
governorship  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Chaldeans  may  not 
have  been  altogether  agreeable  to  the  Persian  nobility, 
and  it  may  have  been  only  professedly  to  honor  Darius 
(Gobryas)  that  he  was  permitted  to  resume  the  govern- 
orship of  the  distant  Kurdistan,  with  his  capital  at  the 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus       109 

northern  Ekbatana,  or  ''Achmetha/'  but  really  to  get 
him  out  of  the  governorship  of  Babylon  and  its 
province,  the  most  important  and  conspicuous  in  the 
empire,  into  one  of  less  importance  and  influence,  and 
where  he  would  be  almost  lost  to  sight. 

(7)  That  he  either  voluntarily  and  by  permission 
returned  to  Media,  or  had  been  authoritatively,  if  not 
arbitrarily,  transferred  to  its  government.      By  ins  re- 

,    .       ,        .         ,        r  1  1  turutoEkba- 

seems  to  explam  the  sms^ular  fact  that  when  tana,  where 

^  ^  the  procla- 

Darius  Hystaspes  made  search  for  the  g^%!^^j^^^,J^ 
proclamation  of  Cyrus,  "in  the  house  of  the  S'^'/sJil: 
rolls  at  Babylon,  it  could  not  there  be  p^^* 
found."  It  was,  however,  found  at  "Achmetha*  (Ek- 
batana), in  the  palace  that  is  in  the  province  of  Media" 
(Ezra  vi,  2).  Its  presence  therein  seems  fairly  to 
justify  the  inference  that  Gobryas  (Darius)  ejected 
or  removed,  as  above  suggested,  or,  having  of  his  own 
accord  retired  to  his  paternal  estates,  had  in  withdraw- 
ing carried  with  him  "the  rolls"  or  "archives,"  the 


*  Under  "Achmetha."  the  new  Bid^e  Dtch'onary,  edhed  by  Hastings,  gives 
Hamadan  (the  southern  Ekbatana)  as  clearly  the  Ekbatana  of  Tobit,  vi,  5,  'Svhere 
it  is  represented  as  lying  midway  between  Nineveh  and  Rhages."  The  accuracy 
of  this  description  or  decision  may  be  best  tested  by  comparing  the  latitude  and 
longitude  of  the  several  places  with  it.  These  are  as  follows,  all  except  Nineveh 
and  Rhages  taken  from  the  article  to  which  reference  is  made:  Nineveh,  36°  21' 
N.,  43'  13' E.;  Ekbatana  (Takht-i-Sulayman),  36°  25'  N.,  47°  10'  E.;  Hamadan, 
34°  8'  N.,  48°  3'  E.;  Rhages,  35°  37'  N.;  51°  46'  E.  From  this  it  will  be  seen  that 
Tobit's  description  is  almost  accurate  when  applied  to  Ekbatana  (modern  name 
Takht-i-Sulayman),  but  does  not  fit  in  at  all  with  the  geographical  relation  of 
Hamadan  to  the  other  places  named.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that  Tobit  re- 
fers to  the  city  as  it  existed  in  the  times,  or  prior  to  the  era  of  Esar-haddon  and 
the  destruction  of  Nineveh.  The  northern  city  also  accords  better  with  the  de- 
scription given  by  Herodotos,  and  gives  consistency  and  additional  credibility  to 
his  story  and  the  descent  and  conquest  of  Cyrus  the  Persian's  military  invasion 
and  migration  southward. 


110      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

records  of  the  transactions  which  had  accumulated  dur- 
ing his  governorship  over  Babylon  and  the  Chaldeans ; 
and  as  Ekbatana  was  never  the  capital  of  the  Medo- 
Persian  or  Persian  empire,  it  is  difficult  otherwise  to 
account  for  the  finding  of  this  "roll,"  the  official  decree 
of  Cyrus,  in  the  palace  of  the  Median  kingdom  or 
province,  so  distant  as  it  was  from  either  Babylon  or 
Shushan.  The  policy  which  in  his  earlier  career  made 
it  apparently  necessary  for  Cyrus  to  confide  so  much 
in  the  Median  leaders  may  have  given  place  to  a  very 
different  line  of  action  when  he  was  firmly  established 
in  his  empire ;  and  to  Cambyses  and  the  Persian  princes 
it  would  seem  expedient  to  get  clear  of  those  who  had 
such  elements  of  popularity  or  ability  as  might  fit  them 
for  leadership  in  the  case  of  revolts  or  seditious  re- 
bellions in  the  empire. 

(8)  The  importance  and  significance  of  the  state- 
ment of  Josephus  that  Darius  the  Median  *'had  another 
Bytheiden-  ^^^^  among  the  Greeks"  may  now  appear. 
G^r^ee^k  and  ^^'^^  record  may,  perhaps,  be  best  accounted 
m\"iV/ar'?  for  by  the  fact  that  to  the  Jews  what  was 
known  of  this  ruler  was  obtained  only  from 
Daniel,  and  that  Josephus,  understanding  Darius  to  be 
a  title  only,  and  not  a  personal  name,  refers  them  to 
the  Greeks  for  its  identification. 

It  is  possible  that  one  reason  among  others  for  the 
form  in  which  Daniel  puts  the  account  of  the  extinction 
of  the  Chaldean  empire  is,  as  before  stated  or  intimated, 
that  Belshazzar  had  been  slain  in  the  attack  and  for- 
cible entry  of  the  Persians  into  the  palace,  timed  in 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus       111 

collusion  with  the  disaffected  nobles  and  hierarchy, 
and  that  by  the  conspirator's  invitation  the  commander 
''took  the  kingdom,"  and  was  by  them  immediately 
saluted  as  ''king  of  the  Chaldeans ;"  his  governorship 
being  afterward  confirmed  by  his  suzerain,  "Cyrus 
king  of  Persia." 

Now,  the  Greek  name  of  the  commander  who,  ac- 
cording to  Xenophon,  had  forced  his  way  into  the 
palace  of  the  slain  king,  was  GOBRYAS.  In  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions  unearthed  within  the  half  cen- 
tury last  past,  and  until  then  utterly  unknown  to  his- 
tory, the  Babylonian  name  is  found,  and  is  now  trans- 
literated UGBARU.  As  we  have  seen,  the  period  and 
functions  allotted  by  Daniel  to  Darius  and  by  the 
inscriptions  to  Ugbaru  in  Babylon  and  Chaldea  are 
identical;  it  would,  therefore,  seem  that  both  names 
belong  to  one  and  the  same  person. 

Of  the  absolute  identity  of  the  Greek  and  cuneiform 
names  (an  identity  impossible  to  be  established  until 
revealed  by  the  late  exhumations)  it  is  scarcely  possible 
to  doubt.  For  it  will  be  seen  that  the  essential  con- 
sonantal elements  are  the  same  in  each,  as  is  also  the 
final  vowel  "U,"  the  difference  being  in  the  syllabifi- 
cation and  vocalization,  the  Greek  also  appending  its 
masculine  terminal  -as.  Thus  we  have  in  Ugbaru  and 
in  T(jj(3pvag 


Cuneiform  vowels, 

U           A 

u 

\         / 

/ 

Consonants,  common 

to  both 

,    G    B 

R 

\/^ 

\ 

Greek  vowels. 

0 

U 

AS,  Greek,  masc.  terminal  affix. 

In  the  new  Bible  Dictionary  the  transliteration  is  Gu- 


112       Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

baru,  a  liberty  taken  with  this  name  similar,  apparently, 
to  that  in  the  transformation  of  Sir-'-la-ai,  as  Schrader 
has  it,  the  name  of  the  home  of  the  Hittite  Akhaabu, 
into  Ahab  Sir'il ;  thus  forcing  it  to  be  more  like  what 
it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  it  was  ever  intended  to 
represent,  namely,  Israel. 

This  name,  Gobryas,  given  in  the  Greek  as  the  name 
of  the  "taker"  of  Babylon  under  Cyrus,  being  a 
Grecized  form  of  the  name,  fulfills  the  conditions  re- 
quired by  the  statement  of  Josephus  for  identification, 
and  it  indissolubly  connects  the  Babylonian  inscrij>- 
tional  name,  UGBARU,  with  the  person  bearing  the 
titular  appellative  Darius,  who  is  definitely  identified 
as  the  son  of  Ahasuerus,  the  Aledian  king  Cyaxares  I, 
and  therefore  the  brother  of  Astyages  (Istuvegu)  ; 
his  (Darius's)  personal  Median  name  being  as  found 
in  Ezra  iv,  6,  Ahasuerus,  the  Hebrew  equivalent  of 
Cyaxares. 

Is  it,  now,  too  much  to  claim  that  this  most  remark- 
able identity  of  these  two  names,  Gobryas  and  Ugbaru, 
apparently  totally  unknown  to  Josephus,  and  unknown 
to  history,  incapable  of  verification  until  after  the  un- 
earthing of  the  buried  cuneiform  inscriptions,  is  abso- 
lutely conclusive  of  the  identity  of  "Darius  the  ^ledian" 
with  "Gobryas — UGBARU,"  indisputably  the  name  of 
the  general  commanding  the  beleaguering  Persian 
forces,  who  made  himself  master  of  the  impregnable 
city,  and  "took  the  kingdom  of  the  Chaldeans,"  incon- 
testibly  the  first  governor  of  his  conquest,  contempo- 
raneously with  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus  the 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      113 

Persian  as  king  paramount  over  Babylon,  the  first 
year;  indeed,  in  which  Babylon  formed  a  part  of  the 
vast  realm  of  the  Medes  and  Persians?    ''I  trow  not."* 

*  It  is  very  evident  that  the  information  of  Xenophon  was  very  limited,  and  in 
many  respects  inaccurate  in  regard  to  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  history.  He 
does  not  seem  to  have  clearly  apprehended  the  march  of  events  in  the  closing 
period  of  the  Assyrian  and  the  early  period  of  the  Babylonian  domination.  There 
is  a  strange  confusion  and  mixture  of  Assyrian  and  Chaldean,  and  of  the  Median 
and  Persian  contention  in  th.it  part  of  Asia,  which  makes  it  difficult,  if  not  impos- 
sible, to  arrange  or  harmonize  his  story  with  what  is  found  in  other  historic  sources 
of  information. 

It  is  observable,  however,  that  his  account  of  Cyaxares,  prior  to  the  taking  of 
Babylon,  coincides  in  certain  particulars  with  both  Daniel  and  the  inscriptions,  in 
the  view  that  the  names  Cyaxares,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Gobryas  identify  the 
same  person.  Thus  Cyaxares  is  called  and  claims  to  be  a  king  (Bk.  i,  ch.  v,  sec.  2; 
Bk.  v,  ch.  X,  sec.  8),  his  capital  being  in  northern  Media.  The  inscriptions,  as  we 
have  seen,  make  Gobryas  to  have  been  governor  of  Gutium,  or  Kurdistan,  which 
seems  at  that  time  to  have  included  northern  Media,  where,  also.  Xenophon  states, 
that  some  time  after  the  fall  of  Babylon  he  was  visited  by  Cyrus.  So,  also,  we 
have  seen  that  Daniel  makes  Darius  to  be  the  son  of  Ahasuerus,  a  Median  of 
the  royal  house  of  the  conquerors  of  Nineveh. 

It  must  be  said,  however,  that  in  Xenophon  they  are  set  before  us  as  distinctly 
separate  persons,  and  different  in  their  relations  to  Cyrus.  But  his  story  as  to 
Gobryas,  his  making  of  him  an  Assyrian,  and  other  matters,  seem  altogether  in- 
compatible with  the  inscriptions  and  with  what  is  well  known  of  the  history  of 
that  period.  For  at  that  time  no  Assyrian  king  was  in  existence,  nor  was  there 
any  existent  Assyrian  empire  or  kingdom,  nor  had  any  Assyrian  monarch  been 
master  of  Gutium  since  the  fall  of  Nineveh,  when  all  that  region  passed  under 
Median  rule.  There  is  no  likelihood  that  the  story  of  Gobryas  as  told  in 
Xenophon  is  true,  nor  is  it  at  all  consistent  with  the  actual  conditions  of  the  region 
dominated  by  the  then  existent  government  that  any  such  surrender  as  that 
described  by  Xenophon  should  or  could  be  made.  Both  names  might,  therefore, 
be  justly  rejected  from  authentic  history,  if  collateral  evidence  were  not  elsewhere 
found  that  both  were  real  and  belonged  to  one  and  the  same  person,  described  or 
identified  in  Holy  Scripture  as  Darius  the  Median,  son  of  Ahasuerus,  the  king  of 
the  Chaldeans;  in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  as  Gobryas  (Ugbaru)  governor  of 
Gutium  (Kurdistan),  commander  of  the  forces  into  whose  hands  Babylon  fell,  and 
of  which  he  immediately  assumed  the  kingship  or  chief  of  the  government  offices 
under  Cyrus  his  suzerain,  the  king  of  Persia. 

8 


114      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 


V»  Matters  Subsidiary 

For  matter  somewhat  germane  to  the   foregoing, 

turning  to  Jer.  xxv,  8-14,  we  find  the  prediction  that  the 

Date  of  the   dominion  of  Babylon  was  to  continue  but 

fall  of  Nine^  -^ 

veil.  seventy  years,  at  the  end  of  which  period 

Babylon  was  to  be  punished  "with  desolations."  Now, 
the  fall  of  Babylon,  and  with  it  the  passing  away  for- 
ever of  all  power  and  dominion  from  the  Babylono- 
Chaldean  empire,  occurred  under  Cyrus,  B.  C.  538, 
just  seventy  years  after  the  fall  of  Nineveh,  B.  C.  607, 
counting,  according  to  the  most  frequent  Oriental 
usage,  the  first  and  last  year  of  the  series  as  full  years. 
( I )  The  beginning  of  the  dominion  or  suzerainty  of 
Cyrus  over  Babylon  and  its  governor  is  fixed  in  the 
Ptolemaic  Canon  at  B.  C.  538.  His  first  year  after 
its  conquest  was  contemporaneous  with  the  first  year 
of  Darius  the  Median  (Gobryas,  as  well),  as  is  herein 
shown.  In  that  first  year  Ezra  (i,  i,  2,  etc.)  gives  to 
Cyrus  the  title  "king  of  Persia,"  and  the  same  year 
gives  to  him  (v,  13)  the  title  "king  of  Babylon,"  a  title 
which  he  himself  also  claimed  {H.  C.  and  M.,  pp.  506, 
514)  and  which,  consequently,  is  never  given  in  Daniel 
to  Darius,  who  is  known  to  this  writer  only  as  "king  of 
the  Chaldeans,"  or  "which  was  made  king  over  the 
realm  of  the  Chaldeans;"  nor  is  this  title  "king  of 
Persia,"  nor  that  of  "king  of  Babylon,"  ever  given  by 
Ezra  to  Ahasuerus   (Dan.  v,  31;  ix,  i;  Ezra  iv,  6). 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      llS 

Both  these  names,  as  is  herein  contended,  belong  to  one 
person,  the  latter  being  his  proper  or  family  name,  the 
former  his  throne  name  or  title.  As  neither  the  title 
"king  of  Babylon"  nor  that  of  "king  of  Persia"  is 
ascribed  to  this  person,  he  is  properly  omitted  in  the 
Canon  or  list  of  Ptolemy,  the  title  and  place  in  the  list 
being  properly  given  to  the  superior  or  suzerain  Cyrus, 
who  for  the  time  seems  to  have  made  Babylon,  the  then 
greatest  city  of  the  Orient,  the  capital  of  his  empire ;  an 
incidental,  but  not  the  less  significant  testimony  to  the 
strict  accuracy  of  the  narratives  of  Daniel  and  Ezra. 
The  date  of  the  conquest  of  Babylon,  its  first  Persian 
governorship,  the  first  year  of  its  subjection  to  Cyrus 
the  Persian,  and  the  extension  of  the  Chaldean  empire 
are,  therefore,  conclusively  fixed  in  B.  C.  538. 

(2)  This  date,  B.  C.  538,  taken  in  connection  w^ith 
the  Biblical  limit  of  seventy  years  for  the  existence  of 
this  last  Chaldean  or  Semitic  kingdom,  somewhat  sum- 
marily disposes  of  the  controversy  as  to  the  date  of  the 
final  destruction  of  Nineveh  and  the  Assyrian  empire, 
no  countenance  whatever  being  thereby  given  to  a  date 
earlier  than  B.  C.  607.  Thus  the  Biblical  account  sup- 
plements and  gives  additional  credibility  to  the  monu- 
ments and  secular  histories ;  and  by  its  incidental  man- 
ner of  introducing  these  matters,  and  making  possible 
these  and  other  synchronisms,  but  especially  this  par- 
ticular one,  adds  to  the  utter  improbability  of  a  date 
for  the  writing  of  the  book  of  Daniel  later  than  that 
of  contemporaneity  with  his  own  lifetime  and  the  dates 
of  the  events  themselves. 


116      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

A  more  explicit  statement  of  the  contemporaneity 

of  Cyrus  may  be  made.     From  Jer.  xxix,  lo,  Daniel 

Cyrus  and  in  the  first  year  of  the  reien  of  Darius  the 

Darius    con-  ^ 

temporary.  Median  understood  that  the  seventy  years 
of  Jerusalem's  desolation  were  about  at  an  end.  He 
therefore  betook  himself  to  prayer  and  supplication 
for  the  fulfillment  of  the  prediction.  This  was  in  the 
first  year  of  the  reign  of  Darius.  While  yet  speaking 
and  praying,  Gabriel  appeared  and  informed  Daniel 
that  at  the  beginning  of  his  supplication  the  command- 
ment for  the  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem  came  forth. 
Turning  to  2  Chron.  xxxvi,  22;  Ezra  xii,  i,  the  state- 
ment is  found  that  the  proclamation  was  issued  in  the 
first  year  of  Cyrus  king  of  Persia.  It  therefore  inde- 
feasibly  follows  that  the  first  year  of  Cyrus  king  of 
Persia  was  the  same  year  as  the  first  year  of  Darius 
the  king  of  the  Chaldeans  at  Babylon.  But  Babylon 
was  a  city,  and  the  Chaldeans  were  conquered  sub- 
jects of  Cyrus  king  of  Persia.  It  therefore  follows 
that  Darius  ruled  but  a  part  of  the  Persian  empire, 
while  Cyrus  reigned  supreme  over  all  its  cities  and 
kingdoms  or  domain. 

The  Geographical  Situation  of  Ancient 

Persia 
(3)  As  supplementing  the  suggestions  already  sub- 
mitted as  to  the  early  situation  of  Persia  in  the  north, 
it  may  be  well  to  attempt,  at  least,  to  account  for  the 
change  to  the  south  land,  while  yet  authenticating  for 
this  historic  period  a  story  consistent  with  that  found 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      117 

in  Herodotos,  the  fragmentary  inscriptions,  and  the 
book  of  Daniel.  As  before  intimated,  it  is  thought  that 
the  northern  locality,  adjoining  Media's  westward 
border,  agrees  best  with  the  accounts  as  gathered  from 
these  various  sources,  as  the  country  from  which  was 
entered  upon  and  continued  the  struggle  with  Media, 
the  western  campaigns,  and  especially  as  the  starting 
point  for  his  subsequent  conquests  in  the  south,  and 
gives  consistency  to  the  narratives  of  the  after  events 
and  course  of  Cyrus.  His  crossing  the  Tigris  near 
Arbela  indicates  a  descent  from  the  mountainous 
north,  and  was  followed  by  his  migratory  and  militant 
march  along  the  rivers,  through  Mesopotamia  as  far 
as  Babylon,  and  possibly  to  the  gulf  or  sea  which  as 
late  as  the  reign  of  Sennacherib  seems  to  have  been 
distinguished  from  the  Upper  (Caspian)  Sea  as  the 
''Lower  Sea." 

It  seems  most  probable,  if  not  absolutely  certain,  that 
the  region  now  known  as  Persia  was  not  any  of  it  occu- 
pied by  the  Aryan  clans  "of  Parsuas,"  nor  was  either 
land  or  gulf  or  sea  into  which  Euphrates  pours  its 
flood  known  as  "Persian"  until  later  than  even  the 
regnal  time  of  Darius,  son  of  Hystaspes.  The  early 
date  of  Daniel  and  this  later  application  of  the  names 
"Persia"  and  "Persian"  to  this  territory  are  indicated 
by  the  statement  of  Daniel  that  in  the  third  year  of 
Belshazzar,  which  was  just  before  the  fall  of  Babylon, 
"Shushan  (Susa)  the  palace  was  [still]  in  the  province 
of  Elam"  (Dan.  viii,  2).  Nor  was  Susa  (Shushan) 
in  Persia  when  Smerdes  was  murdered.     For  Darius 


118      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

came  from  Persia,  where  his  father  was  governor,  to 
Susa,  and  there  joined  the  conspirators  (Her.,  iii, 
§70;  Raw.,  A.  H.,  vol.  iii,  p.  437).  If  it  be  objected 
that  there  is  no  indication  either  of  the  direction  or  of 
the  distance  traveled  by  Darius,  that  is  freely  granted, 
but  is  thought  to  be  ofiset  by  what  seem  to  be  the  facts, 
that  in  all  previous  references  to  the  Persian  the 
northern  location  is  most  agreeable  to  or  is  required 
by  the  context,  and  that  the  time  from  the  coming  of  the 
Persian  hosts  Into  that  part  of  the  recently  acquired 
empire  had  been  too  short  for  the  supplanting  of  the 
native  name,  whatever  that  might  have  been,  by  the 
alien  name  of  Persia ;  and  that  such  change  at  that  date 
was  hampered  by  the  fact  that  in  the  imperial  title 
Persia  seemed  to  be  inferior  to  the  Medians,  whose 
great  monarchy  long  antedated  and  overshadowed  the 
less  numerous  and  hitherto  less  feared  Parsuans. 

Of  course,  in  the  partial  disintegration  or  distribu- 
tion of  the  several  peoples  composing  the  vast  host  of 
Cyrus,  and  the  change  of  its  personnel,  the  Medes  would 
gravitate  to  their  own  former  and  perhaps  better 
land,  and  all  the  more  so  as  their  relative  supremacy 
was  rapidly  declining;  while  the  Persians,  really  then 
without  a  country  to  which  they  could  possibly  with 
safety  return,  advancing  toward  or  having  attained  the 
primacy,  and  their  capital  being  no  longer  in  the  in- 
clement north,  but  alternating  between  Babylon  and 
Susa,  would  necessarily  remain  in  the  region  selected 
by  Persian  authority  as  the  center  of  their  influence; 
and  as  maintaining  or  increasing  their  prestige  would, 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus       119 

carefully  retaining  their  own  national  designation  and 
names,  be  distributed  through  this  southern  land,  from 
which  its  former  name  would  be  displaced,  disappear, 
and  be  forgotten ;  much  as  was  the  case  in  this  western 
hemisphere.  But  in  the  absence  of  an  accessible  litera- 
ture, or  the  more  modern  facility  for  keeping  record  of 
what  was  learned  from  them,  much  more  quickly  would 
the  new  take  the  place,  and  the  old  or  native  names 
disappear  and  be  forgotten,  than  when  Europeans  took 
the  place  of  the  aborigines  and  introduced  themselves 
and  their  own  names.  In  the  brief  period  covered  by 
the  historic  part  of  the  book  of  Daniel  this  change  could 
not  possibly  have  been  made,  but  the  transformation, 
begun  soon  after  the  complete  organization  and  con- 
solidation into  one  empire  had  been  effected,  would 
proceed  rapidly  to  its  consummation,  and  under  the 
favor  and  influence  of  the  Hystaspean  regime  it  passed 
into  history  by  the  name  which  it  now  bears,  and,  in  the 
absence  of  the  history  and  name  of  its  former  inhabit- 
ants, has  reflected  this  new  name  into  the  more  remote 
history  of  Cyrus,  and  thereby  created  somewhat  of 
confusion  and  misinterpretation  of  the  narratives  of 
later  writers,  and  the  early  supposed  geographical  iden- 
tifications. 

As  to  the  preoccupants  of  at  least  the  southwestern 
and  perhaps  the  southern  districts  of  what  is  now  called 
Persia,  it  seems  inferable  from  the  inscriptions  of 
Sennacherib  that  they  were  in  part  Chaldeans.  For  in 
his  sixth  campaign  he  found  that  the  remaining  in- 
habitants of  Bit-yukin,  with  whom  after  his  defeat 


120      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

Merodach-baladan  had  taken  refuge,  still  fearing  the 
Assyrian's  "powerful  arms,"  had  fled  across  "the 
great  sea  of  the  rising  sun"  (the  Persian  Gulf),  "and 
set  their  homes  in  the  city  of  Nagitu,  in  the  land  of 
Elam."  This  seems  to  indicate  that  Elam  at  this  time 
extended  to  the  "great  sea,"  and  covered  the  parts  con- 
tiguous to  the  seacoast.  He,  therefore,  "in  ships" 
built  or  furnished  by  "Syrians,"  embarked  and  pursued 
them,  and  seized  the  coastwise  districts  then  in  Elam, 
whose  king  had  been  the  abettor,  if  not  the  instigator, 
of  the  Chaldean  inroads. 

This  indication  of  the  Chaldean  occupation  remark- 
ably chimes  in  with  Isaiah's  expression  (xliii,  14)  ut- 
tered at  or  near  this  time :  "The  cry  of  the  Chaldeans 
is  in  their  ships"  (Rev.  Ver.,  "in  the  ships  of  their 
rejoicing").  It  also  accounts  for  their  easy  escape 
under  Baladan  and  Segub  from  the  victorious  Assyri- 
ans, they  being  usually  unprepared  for  pursuit  by 
water.  It  may  also  explain  the  movement,  during  the 
siege,  of  a  division  of  the  effective  part  of  the  army  of 
Cyrus  southward  of  Babylon  toward  Ereck,  Bit-yukin, 
etc.,  while  Cyrus  went  northward  to  the  lake,  into 
which,  having  turned  "the  river  by  means  of  a  canal, 
he  made  the  ancient  channel  fordable  by  the  sinking  of 
the  river."  Gobryas  was  left  with  his  division  to  enter 
through  the  river  gates,  left  open  either  through  col- 
lusion or  neglect,  and  thus  to  possess  himself  of  the 
renowned  capital  of  the  Orient.  The  stationing  of  such 
a  force  south  of  the  city  was  doubtless  a  necessary  pre- 
cautionary military  expedient,  to  prevent  the  Chaldeans 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      121 

from  reinforcing  their  king.  Such  irruptions  as  would 
have  been  possible  might  delay  or  even  frustrate  the 
taking  of  the  city.  They  would  certainly  have  proved 
seriously  embarrassing  to  the  operations  of  the  Median 
commander  of  the  beleaguering  forces,  to  whom  was 
left  the  completion  of  the  siege  of  the  enemies'  capital 
and  the  utter  dismemberment  of  the  last  Chaldeo- 
Semitic  kingdom. 

It  is  singularly  in  accord  with  the  above  that  Xeno- 
phon  states  that:  "When  the  affairs  in  Babylon  ap- 
peared to  him  so  favorably  settled  that  he  (Cyrus) 
might  absent  himself  from  thence,  he  prepared,  and 
directed  others  to  prepare,  for  a  journey  into  Persia." 
It  is  to  be  kept  in  mind,  now,  that  his  starting  point  in 
this  journey  is  Babylon.  "When,"  continues  Xenophon, 
"in  the  course  of  their  march  they  came  to  Media 
Cyrus  turned  aside  to  visit  Cyaxares,"  who  is  repre- 
sented as  reigning  in  full  control  of  Media.  From 
thence  he  continued  his  march  to  Persia.  On  his 
return  march  he  again  visited  Cyaxares,  and  at  this 
time  is  reported  to  have  received  the  Median  monarch's 
daughter  in  marriage,  with  whom,  after  a  brief  stay, 
he  departed  on  his  return  journey  to  Babylon. 

As  Media  was  very  far  north  of  Babylon,  this 
"march"  or  "journey"  most  assuredly  indicates  that 
ancient  Persia,  in  Xenophon's  day,  was  understood  to 
have  been  at  least  as  far  north  as  Media,  both  before 
and  when  Babylon  came  under  the  dominion  of  Cyrus. 
It  points  also  to  the  theory  that  his  direct  northern 
route  led  him  westward  of  Media  and  its  capital,  to 


122       Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

reach  which,  whether  the  northern  or  the  southern 
Ekbatana,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  ''turn  aside" 
eastward.  It  matters  not  for  our  purpose  whether  this 
march  was  really  made  or  not.  The  incontrovertible 
fact  that  he  did  make  record  of  such  a  journey  or 
march  of  Cyrus  in  the  described  northerly  direction 
from  Babylon  to  Persia  renders  it  absolutely  certain 
that  in  Xenophon's  time  his  geography  placed  ancient 
Parsuas,  or  Persia,  far  up  in  the  north,  and  not  in 
the  south  land  with  its  border  upon  the  Indian  Ocean. 
Certainly,  it  was  subsequently  to  his  time,  and  to  the 
accession  of  Darius  the  son  of  Hystaspes,  but  how  long 
thereafter  is  unknown,  when  that  floral  land,  the  de- 
light of  poesy  and  romance,  came  into  the  possession  of 
the  name  Persia,  and  so  passed  into  the  maps  and 
historic  geography  of  all  the  later  ages  (Xen.,  Cyrop., 
bk.  viii,  ch.  v,  sec.  i,  et  seq.). 

Assumed  Disagreements  of  Jeremiah  and  Daniel 
It  is,  perhaps,  necessary  to  give  some  attention  to  the 
charges  that  Daniel  and  Jeremiah  disagree  as  to  certain 
chronological  statements.  Thus,  Daniel  states  that 
"In  the  third  year  of  Jchoiakim  king  of  Judah  came 
Nebuchadnezzar  king  of  Babylon  unto  Jerusalem,  and 
besieged  it"  (i,  i).  This  is  said  to  be  in  contradiction 
of  Jer.  XXV,  I,  which  reads:  "In  the  fourth  year  of 
Jehoiakim  the  son  of  Josiah  king  of  Judah,  that  was  the 
first  year  of  Nebuchadnezzar  king  of  Babylon,"  etc., 
etc.  To  this  the  reply  has  been  made  that  the  clause 
is  not  in  the  Septuagint.    This,  however,  can  have  but 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus       123 

little  or  no  weight  with  those  who  rely  upon  the  integ- 
rity of  the  Masoretic  Hebrew  text.  It  is,  perhaps, 
better  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  Daniel  does  not  say 
what  year  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  reign  this  was,  but 
simply  that  in  Jehoiakim's  ''third  year"  he  came  to  Je- 
rusalem and  besieged  it.  Neither  does  Jeremiah  say 
that  the  fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim's  reign  was  the  first 
year  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  reign.  There  is,  therefore, 
no  contradiction  as  to  the  year,  since  there  is  nothing 
to  show  that  both  referred  to  the  same  year,  or  that 
indicates  that  the  years  could  not  be  other  than  the 
same.  There  is  no  contradiction  as  to  the  matter  or  the 
event  referred  to  by  each.  They  are  distinctly  differ- 
ent, and  have  no  relation  the  one  to  the  other.  What, 
according  to  Daniel,  happened  in  Jehoiakim's  third  year 
was  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  and  the  giving  of  tribute 
as  a  vassal ;  this  vassalage  being,  doubtless,  the  same 
referred  to  in  2  Kings  xxiv,  i :  "In  his  days  Nebuchad- 
nezzar king  of  Babylon  came  up,  and  Jehoiakim  be- 
came his  servant  three  years:  then  he  turned  and  re- 
belled against  him."  What  happened  in  his  fourth 
year  was,  according  to  Jeremiah,  that  "the  word  of 
the  Lord  came  to  Jeremiah  concerning  all  the  people  of 
Judah,"  threatening  judgments  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  "the  families  of  the  north"  and  "Nebuchadnez- 
zar." Warnings  against  the  prevalent  wickedness  had 
been  uttered  by  Jeremiah  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign 
of  Jehoiakim,  but  in  this  fourth  year  the  threats  take  a 
more  definite  and  specific  form.  The  disastrous  results, 
doubtless,  began  to  be  realized  at  the  close  of  the  three 


124      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

years  of  acknowledged  vassalage,  when  the  nations 
were  let  loose  against  Judah,  and  the  predictions  were 
fulfilled  in  the  dethronement,  murder,  or  captivity  of  its 
monarchs,  and  the  destruction  of  its  sacred  capital  (cf. 
2  Kings  xxiv,  i,  2;  Jer.  vii ;  xxv,  i,  2;  xxvi,  i,  etc.). 
It  is  further  objected  that  because  Jeremiah,  in  the 
fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim,  in  predicting  what  would, 
after  that  fourth  year,  happen  in  Judea,  does  not  men- 
tion the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  which  according  to  Daniel 
had  taken  place  in  the  year  preceding,  and  yet  names 
Nebuchadnezzar  as  God's  instrument  to  bring  punish- 
ment upon  the  Hebrews,  it  therefore  follows  that  there 
was  no  siege  in  third  Jehoiakim,  and  that  consequently 
Jeremiah  did  not  have  knowledge  nor  could  have  writ- 
ten of  it.  But  a  very  cursory  reading  of  that  twenty- 
fifth  chapter  will  show  that  the  prophet's  care  was  for 
the  future.  He  enters  upon  no  details  as  to  the  past, 
does  not  name  a  single  incident,  judgment,  reverse,  or 
calamity  in  their  past  history.  He  simply  reminds  them 
that  for  "twenty-three  years  from  the  thirteenth  year 
of  Josiah  the  son  of  Amon"  (B.  C.  628-605)  he,  on  the 
authority  of  Jehovah,  had  earnestly  warned  them,  as 
had  also  other  prophets,  of  the  fearful  calamities  which 
in  the  future  must  result  from  their  persistent  wicked- 
ness, and  yet  they  had  not  changed  their  course.  He 
now,  probably  in  the  lull  occasioned  by  the  Chaldean's 
conflict  with  Necho,  assures  them  of  the  certainty  of 
their  approaching  doom,  and,  to  impress  them  with  its 
nearness,  names  as  the  leader  of  the  vast  army  or  host 
of  multitudinous  peoples  that  would  be  against  them 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      125 

and  lay  their  city  and  kingdom  in  ruins,  a  king  of 
whose  terrible  prowess  they  had,  according  to  Daniel, 
just  received  a  practical  demonstration,  and  whose 
very  name  would  revive  their  fears.  He  catalogues 
none  of  the  calamities  that  had  befallen  them,  but 
earnestly  concentrates  their  attention  upon  what  were 
to  be  the  future  results  of  their  continued  perverseness 
and  disobedience.  Certainly,  for  his  purpose,  the  nam- 
ing of  so  recent  an  event  as  last  year's  siege  would  have 
added  but  little  to  the  influence  which  it  was  already 
exerting,  and  the  memory  of  which  would  be  revived 
by  the  naming  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  Silence,  therefore, 
served  a  better  purpose  than  needless  repetition.  Si- 
lence such  as  this,  or  the  assumption  of  the  ignorance 
of  Jeremiah,  cannot  legitimately  be  construed  as  evi- 
dence of  the  falsity  of  the  positive  statement  of  Daniel, 
no  more  than  could  the  silence  of  a  witness  concerning 
a  matter  to  which  his  attention  had  not  been  expressly 
directed,  but  concerning  which  another  witness  had 
given  positive  testimony,  be  held  as  sufficient  evidence 
of  the  falsity  of  such  positive  testimony.  A  confession 
of  ignorance,  even,  as  to  this  matter  would  not  be  suf- 
ficient to  discredit  such  testimony.  A  disinterested 
witness  must  be  taken  to  speak  the  truth  unless  there  is 
some  other  objection  to  it  than  mere  silence  or  sup- 
posed ignorance  on  the  part  of  others.  In  the  case  of 
Daniel  there  is  no  conceivable  personal  interest  to  be 
subserved  by  the  introduction  of  the  "siege"  into  his 
narrative,  no  matter  when  written,  nor  any  reason  for 
the  statement  whatever^  if  it  is  not  true.    In  his  case 


126      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

the  probabiHties  are  altogether  in  favor  of  its  truthful- 
ness. It  was  of  the  very  first  importance  to  the  king  of 
Babylon  that  his  rightful  authority  should  be  promptly 
asserted  and  firmly  established  over  this  part  of  the 
conquered  and  dismembered  Assyrian  empire.  Nothing 
could  more  effectually  do  this  than  the  bringing  into 
subjection  the  Jewish  kingdom,  at  that  time  really  the 
strongest  and  most  important  landed  power  in  that 
part  of  Syria.  The  fact  that  about  the  date  of  the  fall 
of  Nineveh  it  had  been  reduced  to  vassalage  by  Necho 
of  Egypt  made  it  all  the  more  important  and  imperative 
to  immediately  assert  the  suzerain  rights  of  the  now  in- 
dependent Babylono-Chaldean  empire ;  and  the  sudden 
appearance  of  Nebuchadnezzar  before  Jerusalem,  and 
its  siege  in  the  second  year  after  the  fall  of  the  Assyrian 
capital  and  empire,  are  just  what  might  be  expected  of 
monarchs  so  enterprising  as  Nabopolassar  and  his 
greater  son. 

Neither  is  there  anything  written,  either  in  the 
monumental  inscriptions  or  in  Jeremiah,  which  posi- 
tively contradicts  the  stated  fact  of  the  siege  of  Jerusa- 
lem by  Nebuchadnezzar  in  the  third  year  of  Jehoiakim, 
and  the  having  given  to  him  "a  part  of  the  vessels  of 
the  house  of  God."  The  plundering  occurred  later, 
nothing  being  then  taken  but  what  was  put  into  his 
hands  by  the  king  (cf.  2  Kings  xxiv,  I,  12,  13).  This 
first  siege  by  him  was  evidently  but  feebly  resisted, 
yet  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  it  and  the  regulation 
of  the  affairs  of  the  new  possessions  detained  him  in 
Syria  until  the  fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim,  and  that  it 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      127 

was  from  Jerusalem  that,  leaving  the  matter  of  the 
hostages,  the  tributary  acquisitions,  etc.,  with  Ashpe- 
naz,  he  hastily  marched  to  Carchemish,  surprised  the 
army  and  forces  which  Necho  of  Egypt  had  left  for  the 
defense  of  that  key  to  his  Syrian  conquests,  defeated 
them  in  battle  with  great  slaughter ;  in  the  pursuit  re- 
lentlessly destroying  or  taking  captive  many  of  the 
Egyptians  and  their  Greek  or  other  allies,  and  so  suf- 
ficiently terrorized  Necho,  their  king,  as  to  prevent  any 
further  attempt  to  regain  the  possessions  wrested  from 
Assyria,  but  to  which  Babylon  had  fallen  heir  from  the 
"river  of  Egypt  to  the  river  Euphrates."  On  his  re- 
turn from  the  pursuit  he  must  have  again  entered 
Judea,  and  from  thence,  after  his  reception  of  the  news 
of  his  father's  death,  hastened  across  by  the  most  direct 
course  to  Babylon,  to  make  good  his  succession  to  the 
throne.  His  sudden  departure  was  opportune  for  the 
"coming  of  the  word  of  the  Lord,"  and  for  another 
effort  to  bring  the  Judeans  into  harmony  with  Jehovah, 
and  willing  obedience  to  Babylon,  by  announcing  to 
them  the  deplorable  results  which  must  follow  their 
persistence  in  rebellion  both  against  Jehovah  and  Baby- 
lon, a  foretaste  of  which  they  had  just  experienced. 
Thus  the  first  year  of  his  sole  reign  would  be  the  fourth 
of  Jehoiakim,  and  would  in  part  be  passed  in  Babylon 
and  Syria. 

It  is  claimed  that  a  disagreement  is  found  in  the 
fact  that,  in  this  matter  pertaining  to  third  Jehoiakim, 
Daniel  refers  to  Nebuchadnezzar  as  "king  of  Babylon," 
while  Jeremiah  writes  that  the  first  year  of  his  reign 


128      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

was  contemporaneous  with  the  fourth  year  of  Jehoia- 
kim  (xxv,  i).  As  to  this,  however,  several  views 
may  be  taken.  Thus,  it  is  possible  that  the  one  uses  it 
in  a  sense  different  from  the  other;  the  former,  per- 
haps, applying  it  to  him  as  it  was  applied  to  his  father 
when  he  was  only  viceroy,  as  may  be  shown  later.  It 
may  also  be  assumed  as  certain  that  when  this  was 
written  by  the  author,  whenever  and  by  whomsoever 
it  was  written,  Nebuchadnezzar  was  either  then  reign- 
ing as  king  of  Babylon  or  had  previously  so  reigned. 
If  he  was  reigning  at  the  time  when  this  was  written  it 
is  not  an  incredible  thing  to  suggest  that  the  title  then 
in  familiar  use  would  from  its  familiarity  be  attached 
to  the  name,  especially  in  narrating  what  had  oc- 
curred so  shortly  before  his  actual  enthronement.  Such 
a  "prolepsis"  is  not  without  precedent.  Thus  in  the 
"Babylonian  Canon"  or  list  of  rulers  in  "Ptolemaeus," 
as  given  in  Schrader's  C.  /.  and  O.  T.,  vol.  ii,  p.  198, 
in  the  heading  above  the  list,  all  are  designated  as 
kings,  and  the  several  dates  of  the  beginning  of  their 
reigns  are  given.  But,  certainly,  Nabonassar  was 
not  king,  but  was  viceroy  or  governor  under  Assyria 
in  747,  nor  was  he  ever  an  independent  sovereign  or 
king.  So  Nabopolassar  in  625  was  yet  subordinate  to 
his  suzerain,  the  king  of  Assyria ;  but  eighteen  years 
thereafter,  by  the  dismemberment  of  the  Assyrian  em- 
pire, he  became  the  first  king  of  the  later  and  last 
Babylono-Chaldean  empire.  Yet  that  did  not  discredit 
the  supposition  that  he  acted  as  a  king  would  act,  from 
the  date  named  until  he  became  king  over  the  realm 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      129 

placed  under  his  government.  In  these  instances  they 
simply  take  the  place  of  the  omitted  names  of  the 
suzerains. 

Neither  is  there  anything  unreasonable  in  the  posi- 
tion if  taken,  nor  anything  written  in  the  history  of 
either  father  or  son  which  positively  is  antagonistic  to 
the  statement  that  for  some  years,  possibly  from  the 
beginning  of  the  siege  of  Nineveh,  Nebuchadnezzar 
had  been  made  co-rex  by  his  father,  and  that  in  this 
character  had  come  to  Jerusalem  in  the  first  year  after 
the  fall  of  Nineveh,  which  was  the  third  of  Jehoiakim, 
to  claim  and  enforce  on  behalf  of  the  new  suzerain  the 
rights  and  sovereignty  acquired  by  conquest. 

All  this  is  in  perfect  consistency  with  a  rational  and 
unforced  interpretation  of  Daniel.  The  Hebrew  hos- 
tages were  all  placed  in  Babylon  under  training  and 
culture,  in  which  they  were  to  be  continued  three  years. 
An  exception  seems  to  have  been  made  in  the  case  of 
the  four  whose  names  have  been  preserved,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  test  which  at  the  suggestion  of  Daniel 
had  been  made  of  a  Jewish  diet ;  and  after  a  ten  days' 
trial  they  seem  to  have  been  exempted  from  the  three 
years'  course.  When  at  the  end  of  the  three  years  the 
rest  of  these  Hebrews  were  brought  into  the  presence 
of  the  king  the  superiority  of  these  four  became  still 
more  manifest.  For  when  the  king  communed  with 
them,  "among  them  all  was  found  none  like"  these 
four.  For,  while  the  rest  had  been  under  the  tutelage 
appointed  for  them,  these  had  been  in  the  actual  serv- 
ice of  the  king;  giving  by  and  in  this  service  actual 
9 


130      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

evidence  that  "God  had  given  them  knowledge  and 
skill  in  all  learning  and  wisdom ;  and  that  Daniel  had 
understanding  in  all  visions  and  dreams"  (i,  17-21). 
And  as  Daniel  had  "stood"*  or  been  in  the  service  of 
Nebuchadnezzar,  as  is  proved  by  his  having  interpreted 
the  "dream"  in  this  king's  second  year  (ii,  i,  et  seq.), 
so  he  "stood"!  in  or  during  "the  first  year  of  Cyrus  the 
king"  (i,  21). 

To  the  objection  assumed  to  lie  against  the  early  date 
of  the  book  of  Daniel  in  the  occurrence  of  Greek  names 
of  certain  Greek  musical  instruments  a  brief  notice 
may  be  given.  That  instruments  with  Greek  names 
should  be  found  in  a  country  whose  chief  and  greatest 
commercial  city  was  wdthin  reach,  by  a  navigable  river, 
of  the  "Lower  Sea"  (the  Persian  Gulf  and  Indian 
Ocean)  should  now  neither  excite  surprise  nor  awaken 
suspicion.  For  the  country  was  in  Ezekiel's  time  called 
"a  land  of  traffic,"  and  its  great  city  a  "city  of  mer- 
chants," of  whom  Isaiah  says,  "The  Lord  sent  to  Baby- 
lon, and  .  .  .  brought  down  .  .  .  the  Chaldeans,  whose 
cry  is  in  the  ships."  The  monuments  show  that  the 
people  of  the  low  country  were  addicted  to  "maritime 
habits  and  pursuits.     In  their  trading  they  certainly 


*  1^7:y'^l,  "  and  he  stood  ; "  LXX,  iorrjaav  ;  Vulg.,  "  steterunt."  This  inter- 
pretation of  the  expression,  *'  therefore,  stood  they  before  the  king  "  (i.  e.,  because 
of  this  superiority  manifested  during  the  three  years  in  the  presence  of  the  king, 
accords  precisely  with  the  story  of  the  second  chapter,  beginning  with,  "  And  in 
the  second  year  of  Nebuchadnezzar,"  and  removes  all  ground  for  a  charge  of  in- 
accuracy, inconsistency,  or  contradiction.  It  was  early  found  that  these  four  did 
not  need  the  three  years'  course  to  fit  them  to  be  of  valuable  service  to  the  king. 

t  "^rr^T  ,  "and  was,"  i.  c,  "  and  (such)  was  Daniel  during  (^?)  the  first  year 
of  Cyrus,"  king  of  Persia. 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus       131 

have  been  suppHed  with  the  wares  of  many  peoples 
of  different  foreign  lands."  It  would  be  indeed  sur- 
prising if  a  people  so  given  to  seafaring  as  the  Greeks 
had  not  thereby  found  their  way  to  the  greatest  city 
and  commercial  emporium  of  the  Orient ;  or  otherwise 
by  overland  caravan  from  Mediterranean  ports.  For 
it  is  now  absolutely  certain  that  as  early  as  the  time  of 
Esar-haddon  and  Assurbanipal  the  island  of  Cyprus 
was  covered  with  Greek  colonies.  Still  earlier,  the 
lonians  are  mentioned  in  the  inscriptions  of  Sargon 
(722-705),  who  informs  us  that  he  had  "drawn  forth 
as  fishes  the  Javanians  (lonians),  who  are  in  the  midst 
of  the  sea"  (Schr.,  C.  I.  and  0.  T.,  vol.  i,  pp.  63,  64). 
Greeks,  perhaps  prisoners  of  war  taken  from  Cyprus 
by  Sargon,  manned  the  fleet  of  Sennacherib  in  the 
"Lower  Sea"  (Persian  Gulf).  In  a  tablet  dated  about 
640,  found  at  Kouyunjik,  the  first  and  fourth  witnesses 
to  a  contract  are  said  by  Mr.  Pinches  to  be  Greeks,  the 
transactions  taking  place  in  Nineveh.  Add  to  this  that 
the  Egyptian  army  defeated  by  Nebuchadnezzar  was 
doubtless  In  part  made  up  of  the  Ionian  (Asiatic) 
Greeks,  of  whom  numbers  must  have  been  taken  cap- 
tive, and  brought,  as  was  the  custom  of  the  times,  and 
located  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  Babylon.  It 
is  pregnantly  observable  that  these  instruments  were 
used  under  the  direction  of  Nebuchadnezzar  at  the 
dedication  of  the  image  in  the  plain  of  Dura,  the  per- 
formers being,  doubtless,  the  instrumental  bands  be- 
longing to  the  palace  and  the  army,  both  home  and 
foreign.    The  vast  assembly  evidently  comprised  con- 


132       Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

tingents  from  the  various  ''provinces"  of  the  empire, 
and  people  of  their  various  ''nations  and  languages," 
among  whom  it  is  "unthinkable"  that  there  should  not 
be  found  representatives  of  so  musically  gifted  a  race 
as  the  Greeks,  whether  from  the  island  province  of 
Cyprus  or  from  the  Ionian  Asiatic  cities  of  the  main- 
land. It  is  significant  that  these  names  occur  only  in 
the  fifth,  seventh,  tenth,  and  fifteenth  verses  of  Daniel's 
third  chapter,  and  in  connection  with  this  great  oc- 
casion of  the  gathering  together  of  the  "princes,  the 
governors,  and  the  captains,  the  judges,  the  treasurers, 
the  counselors,  the  sheriffs,  and  all  the  rulers  of  the 
provinces" — a  great  occasion,  in  which  the  sudden  out- 
burst and  clangor  of  a  vast  multitude  in  great  variety 
of  such  instruments  was  to  form  a  very  conspicuous 
and  essential  feature,  and  in  which  all  present  and 
available  musicians  of  whatever  nationality  would 
likely  be  participants;  instruments  of  somewhat  es- 
pecial excellence  and  variety,  and  those  of  foreign 
origin,  being  distinctively  named,  separate  and  apart 
from  "all"  other  "kinds  of  music."  We  may  empha- 
size the  fact  that  "all  the  rulers  of  the  provinces"  had 
been  summoned,  and  as  Cyprus  was  then  within  the  im- 
perial domain  its  ruler  must  have  been  among  those 
that  were  present;  and  if  for  no  other  reason  or  ob- 
jects than  those  which  sufficed  in  the  arrangement  for 
the  celebration  of  the  Victorian  jubilee,  to  bring  to- 
gether in  the  world's  metropolis  natives  with  their 
peculiar  costumes  and  instruments  musical,  military, 
etc.,  these  several  rulers  of  the  diverse  peoples  would 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus       133 

bring  out  the  pecuHarities  of  their  subjects,  and  thus 
glorify  at  once  themselves  and  their  sovereign,  and 
thus  by  active  participation  in  the  ceremonies  of  the 
grand  gala  day  add  greatly  to  its  interest.  It  does  not, 
therefore,  necessarily  follow  that  the  use  of  these 
words,  even  if  it  could  be  conclusively  shown  that  they 
were  all  Greek,  demonstrates  that  the  book  had  a  later 
origin  than  the  era  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  Even  the  fact, 
if  it  be  a  fact,  that  one  of  the  words  is  not  extant  in 
Greek  writings  earlier  than  Aristotle,  or  Alexander  of 
Macedon,  does  not  necessarily  discredit  this  earlier 
use,  since  it  may  have  been  peculiar  to  the  Cypriotic 
or  Asiatic  Greeks,  but  little  of  the  surviving  literature 
of  whom  is  probably  of  a  kind  in  which  such  instru- 
ments would  be  named.  It  is  possible,  also,  that  when 
used  by  Aristotle  it  came  from  the  Asiatic  Greeks ;  a 
result  of  the  greater  intimacy  of  the  European  and 
Asiatic  kindred,  brought  about  by  the  conquests  of 
Alexander. 

Reciprocity  of  Courteous  Consideration  of  the 
Doubts  and  Difficulties  Due  to  Both  Parties 
IN    Controversy 

It  is  undoubtedly  well  for  the  upholders  of  the 
integrity  of  this  book  to  treat  with  all  due  respect  and 
placidly,  patiently,  unshrinkingly  endeavor  to  answer 
all  questions,  to  consider  all  the  difficulties,  to  solve 
all  the  conundrums  and  meet  the  various  objections, 
great  and  small,  of  the  doubters  of  this  integrity.  But 
it  seems  well  to  suggest  that  difficulties,  conundrums, 


134      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

questionings  present  themselves  to  the  believer,  as  to 
the  theories  and  conclusions,  both  inferential  and  dog- 
matic, of  the  doubter;  many  of  which  theories  and 
conclusions,  to  some,  at  least,  seem  largely  to  rest  upon 
assumptions  or  misinterpretations,  the  minifying  of  the 
supernatural,  its  partial  or  entire  rejection,  the  undue 
exaltation  of  mere  naturalism,  or  other  like  matters. 
As  to  the  theory  of  a  later  date  for  the  book  of  Daniel, 
it  seems  difficult  to  conceive  how  it  would  have  been 
possible,  at  any  time  after  the  Macedonian  conquest, 
for  a  writer  with  the  mental  endowment,  the  literary 
culture  and  ability  required,  to  concoct  such  matter  as 
is  found  in  this  book,  and  yet  in  the  greatly  changed 
conditions  of  the  empire  escape  the  modifying  influence 
of  Greek  customs,  history  and  literature,  the  then  cur- 
rent patois  and  vocabulary,  and  how  he  could  and  why 
he  should  write  and  combine,  without  the  then  existing 
necessity  therefor,  both  Hebrew  and  Chaldaic,  as  ac- 
curately as  in  the  earlier  days.  It  is  difficult  for  the 
upholder  to  understand,  for  example,  and  it  would  be 
a  courtesy  to  him  for  the  doubter,  if  possible,  satis- 
factorily to  show  how  the  writer,  if  writing  at  any  time 
after  the  Macedonian  conquest,  could  know  and  why  he 
should  introduce  in  his  history  the  name  of  Belshazzar, 
a  name  utterly  unknown  to  other  historians,  except  as 
derived  from  this  book ;  and  how  this  late  writer  hap- 
pened to  have  this  exclusive  knowledge  that  Belshazzar 
lived  at  the  date  assigned?  Yet  that  he  then  lived  is 
no  longer  matter  of  controversy,  but  is  indisputably 
proved  by  records  which  were  buried  out  of  sight,  un- 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      135 

known,  unread  in  the  days  of  the  Maccabees,  and  have 
only  been  deciphered  in  the  later  years  of  this  century. 
There  is  difficulty  in  accounting  for  the  inserting  of  the 
name,  title  and  story  of  Darius  the  Median  by  a  writer 
of  the  later  date,  since  the  introduction  of  so  many 
names  of  persons  at  that  day  utterly  unheard  of  would 
increase  the  liability  of  its  rejection  as  actual  history, 
and  tend  to  cause  its  exclusion  from  the  sacred  canon. 
In  truth,  it  would  seem  that,  historically,  the  crea- 
tion of  this  book,  as  it  now  exists,  at  any  time  subse- 
quent to  the  loss  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  would 
be  as  marvelously  supernatural  or  miraculous  as  even 
the  escape  from  the  fiery  furnace ;  and  that  the  theory 
of  its  Maccabean  or  later  origin  should  escape  the 
death-dealing  testimony  of  "the  witnesses  from  the 
dust"  is  perhaps  less  credible  than  the  narrative  of  the 
escape  from  "the  den  of  lions." 

NOTE  ON  DANIEL'S  USE  OF  PERSIAN  WORDS. 

The  words  in  the  book  of  Daniel  which  are  claimed 
to  be  Persian,  or  of  Persian  origin,  are  translated  in 
Driver's  Daniel  as  follows : 

"Choice  food,  delicacies ;  law ;  secret ;  satraps ;  coun- 
sel-giver; law-bearer;  justice;  kind;  message,  order, 
decree;  minister;  President;  receptacle,  sheath;  pal- 
ace ;  throne-room ;  present ;  mantle ;  necklace." 

To  the  report  that  these  are  all  Persian  words,  and 
to  the  translation  of  some  of  them  objection  might 
perhaps  be  substantiated.  As  to  some  of  them  an  argit- 
ment  against  the  condemnation  of  the  book  because  of 


136      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

their  presence  in  it  might  be  made  from  the  connection 
in  which  they  are  found,  and  the  new  use  of  that  which 
is  named.  But  arguments  such  as  this  may  for  the 
present  safely  be  waived. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  dispute  the  ethnic  origin  of 
these  words,  nor  the  rendering  recited ;  nor  is  it  at  all 
necessary  for  us  so  to  do,  but  rather  otherwise,  as  may, 
perhaps,  be  hereafter  apparent.  For  at  a  glance  it  is 
evident  that  all  these  words,  except,  perhaps,  "satraps," 
''President,"  indicate  what  are  matters  of  every-day  life, 
or  are  common  to  all  peoples  and  nations.  Further- 
more, it  is  not  made  an  objection  to  Daniel's  use,  "that 
these  words  are  in  books  written  after  the  Persian 
empire  was  organized,"  and  "when  Persian  influence 
prevailed,"  or  because  "many  were  permanently  nat- 
uralized in  Aramaic  (both  Syriac  and  the  Aramaic  of 
the  Targums)."  These  are  facts  admitted,  and  incon- 
testable proofs  that  such  words  were  in  early  use  in 
that  country.  But  the  mystery  is,  and  there  the  objec- 
tion to  the  date  claimed  for  the  book  lies,  that  these 
words  "should  be  used  as  a  matter  of  course  by  Daniel 
under  the  Babylonian  supremacy,  or  in  the  description 
of  Babylonian  supremacy,  or  in  the  description  of  Bab- 
ylonian institutions  before  the  conquest  of  Cyrus,"  and 
this  is  pronounced,  "ex  cathedra,"  "to  be  in  the  last 
degree  improbable."  At  the  same  time  and  with  the 
same  authoritative  dictum  "this  argument" (?)  is  said 
to  be  "confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  the  inscriptions." 
To  this  it  might  be  answered  that  there  is  good  reason 
to  believe  that  there  is  no  impossibility  of  the  truth  of 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      137 

the  assertion  that  the  words  were  in  use  in  Babylon 
"before  the  conquest  by  Cyrus,"  and  that  the  prima 
facie  evidence  from  the  book  itself  is  that  Daniel  did 
not  write  nor  publish  his  account  ''under  [during]  the 
Babylonian  supremacy,"  but  after  that  had  passed  away 
and  the  Persian  influence  was  absolute  and  everywhere 
felt  in  their  widely  extended  empire.  The  absence  of 
Persian  words  in  contract  tablets  during  "Chaldean 
supremacy"  is  what  might  be  expected,  and  a  negation 
or  omission  is  not  necessarily  a  positive  argument  or 
proof  of  certainty  as  to  the  opposite,  nor  can  have  any 
bearing  upon  it,  unless  they  treat  of  subjects  the  same, 
or  in  which  such  words  or  their  equivalents  must  be 
used,  and  of  this,  evidence  has  not,  I  think,  been  ad- 
duced.    (See  Driver's  Daniel,  p.  Ivii.) 

As  before  stated,  the  things  or  matters  indicated  by 
these  Persian  words  are  clearly  not  merely  peculiar 
to  Persia,  nor  indeed  limited  to  any  one  nation  or  peo- 
ple. "Food"  is  everywhere  necessary  for  existence, 
and  is  often  indicated  even  among  the  same  people  by 
different  or  several  words  or  forms  of  expression,  both 
native  and  foreign.  But,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
suppose  it  be  admitted — it  might  possibly  even  strength- 
en our  position  to  contend — that  these  words  were  not 
in  actual  use  in  Babylonia  prior  to  the  conquest  by 
Cyrus,  or  at  the  time  when  the  events  occurred  of 
which  Daniel  writes  an  account,  the  effect  of  such  an 
admission  or  contention  upon  the  question  as  to  the 
date  when  the  book  containing  such  words  was  written 
is  not  thereby  absolutely  settled.    For  a  settlement  in 


138      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

that  way  it  would  seem  necessary  to  assume  that  a 
man  who  lived  during  the  period  which  was  included 
in  the  claimed  lifetime,  circumstances,  and  in  the  midst 
of  the  associations  and  influences  with  which  the  book 
or  story  surrounds  him  could  neither  know  nor  use 
these  Persian  words  or  names  for  things  common  to 
all.  Yet  it  seems  certain  that  all  these  names  were  in 
use  among  the  Persians ;  and  no  valid  or  absolutely  in- 
defeasible reason  can  be  given,  or  a  greater  probability 
established,  that  for  ten,  twenty,  or  possibly  thirty 
years  these  common  Persian  words,  in  a  region  where 
Persian  influence  was  supreme,  neither  superseded,  nor 
mingled  with,  nor  shared  in  common  with  the  native 
or  Aramaic  words  of  the  same  class  or  kind. 

What  now  are  the  facts  as  set  forth  or  implied  in  the 
statements  of  the  book  of  Daniel  as  to  his  environ- 
ments? From  the  taking  of  Babylon  (B.  C.  538)  and 
the  extinction  of  the  Babylono-Chaldean  empire,  Dan- 
iel was  absolutely  in  the  power  of  the  Medes  and  Per- 
sians, people  of  one  and  the  same  language ;  was  in  their 
employment  in  matters  of  state,  and  therefore  must 
have  acquired  a  greater  or  less  familiarity  especially 
with  the  common  words  of  their  language,  and  in  his 
later  years  to  him,  as  himself  a  foreigner,  and  indebted 
for  favor  to  both  himself  and  his  nation,  such  words 
would  most  readily  come,  and  to  their  use  he  would 
be  most  naturally  drawn,  as  aiding  and  abetting  the 
purpose  of  the  dominant  authority  to  Persianize  all 
things  in  the  empire. 

In  the  argument  of  Professor  Driver  it  seems  to  be 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      139 

assumed  that  the  book  itself  claims  or  gives  indications 
that  it  was  written  during  the  supremacy  of  the  Bab- 
ylonian empire.  But,  if  the  book  is  to  be  taken  as  ev- 
idence, it  is  absolutely  settled  thereby  that  a  large  part 
of  it  could  not  have  been  written  until  after  the 
conquest.  Thus,  at  the  close  of  the  first  chapter  it  is 
stated  that  "Daniel  continued  even  to  the  first  year 
of  Cyrus,"  which,  of  course,  was  after  the  conquest. 
Neither  could  the  fifth,  nor  sixth,  nor  ninth,  nor 
tenth,  nor  eleventh,  nor  twelfth  chapters  have  been 
written  until  after  the  conquest,  if  the  book  itself 
is  to  be  taken  in  evidence.  The  prima  facie  evidence 
from  the  book  itself  is  that  it  was  written  late  in  Dan- 
iel's lifetime,  as  late  as  near,  if  not  after,  the  close  of 
the  reign  of  Cyrus,  perhaps  after  he  had  retired  outside 
of  Babylon,  to  some  residence  or  retreat  near  the  great 
river  Hiddekel  (Tigris). 

It  need  not  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that  during  this 
period  of  possible  subserviency  to  Persian  domination 
a  few  Persian  names  of  common  things,  and  two  names 
of  matters  peculiar  to  the  Medes  and  Persians,  should 
even  in  Babylon  have  taken  place  among,  or  even 
superseded  in  common  use,  the  vernacular  Semite  ex- 
pressions. It  would  indeed  be  more  surprising  if  such 
substitutions  had  not  occurred,  especially  in  view  of  the 
evident  purpose  of  the  Persians  as  quickly  as  possible 
to  absolutely  Persianize  their  vast  empire. 

It  seems,  also,  to  have  been  overlooked  in  the  argu- 
ment combated  that  Parsuans,  or  Persians,  and  their 
language  could  not  be  wholly  unknown  to  the  Baby- 


140      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

lonians  long  before  the  conquest  by  Cyrus  and  the  life- 
time of  Daniel.  Early  as  the  reign  of  Tiglath-pileser 
III  (B.  C.  731)  the  name  Poros,  found  in  the  king  list 
of  Ptolemy,  is  claimed  by  critics  to  be  a  Persian  form 
of  the  name  Pul,  who  is  by  them  identified  as  Tiglath- 
pileser  the  Assyrian,  who  about  that  time  is  said  to  have 
taken  the  hands  of  Bel,  and  thereby  to  have  been  in- 
augurated as  king  of  Babylon.  Some  thirty  or  more 
years  later  the  Parsuans,  or  Persians,  were  among  the 
allies  of  the  king  of  Elam,  who  fought  against  Sennach- 
erib for  the  mastery  of  Babylonia,  and  to  them  the 
sympathy  of  the  Babylonians  tended.  During  the  reign 
of  Nabopolassar  both  before  and  after  the  fall  of  Nin- 
eveh, and  probably  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  had  mar- 
ried the  daughter  of  Cyaxares  the  Median  king,  the 
Babylonians  and  the  Medcs — the  language  of  the  latter 
being  identical  with  that  of  the  Persians — were  thus 
in  intimate  relation  with  each  other  (607-563).  It 
could  not,  therefore,  be  at  all  marvelous  if  a  few  such 
common  words  as  these  should  be  known  among  the 
people  who  did  not  write  history  or  commercial  tablets, 
and  for  state  or  through  race  antagonism  be  ignored  by 
those  who  did  write.  As  above  intimated,  it  was  dif- 
ferent with  Daniel  the  Jew,  writing  his  book  after  the 
Persian  supremacy,  having  no  race  prejudice,  certainly 
not  against  Persians,  who  had  greatly  favored  both 
himself  and  his  people,  and  had  every  reason  to  coop- 
erate with  them  in  the  Persianizing  both  language  and 
customs  in  the  empire.  In  his  close  contact  with  the 
Medes  and  Persians  he  would  be  more  familiar  with 


Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus      141 

the  words  day  by  day  uttered  in  his  presence  by  both 
superiors  and  inferiors,  and  would  use  them  perhaps 
preferably  to  the  Aramaic.  It  is  fair  to  say  that  it 
is  more  to  be  wondered  at  that  so  few  Persian  words 
occur  than  that  these  few  should  be  found  in  his  writ- 
ing, just  as  we  may  say  that  it  would  be  strange  that 
a  writer  in  the  Maccabean  age  with  Greek  supremacy, 
Greek  language,  Greek  everywhere  about  him,  whether 
in  Judea  or  Babylonia,  and  in  the  decadence  or  col- 
lapse of  Persian,  should  use  any  Persian  words,  or  fail 
to  use  Grecian  words  and  give  to  his  story  the  Grecian 
coloring.  In  both  cases  the  conclusion  seems  just  that 
the  tendency  of  the  argument  is  to  authenticate  the 
early  date  for  the  writing  of  the  book  of  Daniel.  With 
a  Median  princess  as  queen  in  the  palace  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar, her  vernacular,  Persian,  and  Daniel's  close  as- 
sociation therewith,  and  with  the  government,  during 
some  fourscore  years,  covering  the  entire  existence  of 
the  Babylono-Chaldean  kingdom,  and  some  part,  if 
not  the  whole,  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus ;  with  the  Greeks 
of  Cyprus  conquered  by  Sargon,  and  the  order  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  that  the  governors  of  the  provinces  as- 
semble on  the  plain  of  Dura,  among  whom  was  doubt- 
less the  governor  of  Cyprus  with  his  civil  and  military 
retinues,  among  whom  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  assume 
that  he  would  mingle  Greeks  in  his  musical  band,  nor 
is  it  unreasonable  to  assume  that  out  of  courtesy  or 
curiosity,  and  for  the  necessity  of  their  distinctly  know- 
ing that  the  Greek  instruments  were  to  share  in  the 
honor  of  signaling  the  time  of  worship ;  what  could  be 


142      Daniel,  Darius  the  Median,  and  Cyrus 

more  natural  than  that  Nebuchadnezzar  should  spe- 
cifically name  the  instrument — theirs,  perhaps,  both 
by  name  and  invention?  Any  objection,  therefore, 
urged  against  the  early  date  of  this  book  based  upon 
the  occurrence  of  either  Persian  or  Greek  words  therein, 
*'is  to  the  last  degree  im probable,"  if  not  absolutely 
absurd. 


'    to    520. 


MEDIA. 


eigned  53  years  (707-654).  Builds  Ekbatana  (Takht-i-sulayman), 
[68  reigned  22  jears  (054-632). 

es  I  reigned  40  years  (632-592).    (Daniel's  Ahasuerns). 
ith  Assyria,  Nineveh  besieged ;  Scyths'  invasion  of  Media  com- 
s  suspension.    Scythians  subject  Media  and  rule  it  for  some 

tvar  with  Alyattes;  form  an  alliance  with  Nabopolassar. 
lipsed  June  30.    Peace  and  Triple  Alliance  made.    Astyages 
'  Cyaxai-es  marries  daughter  of  Alyattes. 

and  Babylon's  rebel  vicei-oy  Join  in  war  with  Assyria.    Nine- 
gain  besieged. 

lies  under  the  command  of  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Cyaxares  take 
estroy  Nineveh. 


B.C. 

707 

k! 

654 

.9i  1 

632 

S^^'- 

626 

i 

625 

623 

IS 

615 

23 

eio 

25 

608 

2G 

607 

iweg»s,    to    the    MEDIAN   EMPIRE. 


Chronological    Conspectus    B.    C.    707    to    320. 

THE    ASSYRIAN    EMPIRE. 


,lys;i|r:;a;;ii:.i*» 


Date  Due 

Ap  2  - 

\                  _ 

•««» 

.pi#.'i*^ 

'^ 



_^^,„,,00m 

APR  2  6  21 

10? 

^ 

'  '■■il 


gll,irDar.u?lheMed,an,C,rus.he 

iiiiiiiii 

1   1012  00012  0594 


'!'  ■;;;! 


